Reading Meeting

Our Intentions How you can support your child to develop their reading skills. Explain the new system for changing reading books.

We start by using sound knowledge to read words. As the children progress through the phonics phases their ability to sound out improves. As their confidence grows we work on the children’s fluency and comprehension skills. When they are ready, these skills are developed further by focusing on the language of texts. We look for hidden meanings and discuss the vocabulary choices.

What can you do at home? Speak to your child in sentences. Have regular discussions with your child Introduce new words and explain what the words mean.

For children who are starting to learn to read: The process of reading begins with activities such as book browsing and sharing stories. As the children become more confident they will want to extend these activities by telling their own stories and making their own books. Once they are ready the children will use their sounds knowledge to build and read simple words. This will develop as the children begin to recall familiar and common words. What can you do to help? Make books a part of your day Listen to your child everyday Make up your own stories together

For children who are able to read fluently: The process changes. We are no longer teaching them to read, we are teaching them to understand and discuss what they are reading. During guided reading we spend time sharing texts together. We develop the children's abilities to read with intonation by reading aloud and discussing how sentences should be read. We focus on comprehension skills to ensure the children can understand what they are reading and can begin to recognise the content which is not necessarily written down in the text. What can you do to help? Listen to your child read everyday – at this stage this is not following the text with them. Ask your child about what they have read. Be a role model – let your child see you reading.

Our new reading system Children will be allocated a day to change their reading books. This will remain the same every week. The children will be bringing home three books, one fiction, one non fiction and one of their choice from their reading colour. The children do not have to read all three books each night. The books get longer as they progress through the colours. This means they may only get through a few pages each evening.

Our new reading system Once they have completed a book, we encourage them to read it again. This deepens their understanding and ability to answer questions with confidence. It will also help to improve their fluency. There are different types of questions that we ask the children.

Assessment Children are heard read once a week in a group during guided reading. They are heard one to one by the class teacher once every fortnight. Learning Support Assistants also aim to hear children once every fortnight and children who require extra reading support are heard more often. Once a child is consistently reading fluently and clearly, we assess the children’s ability to move onto the next colour book band. This consists of a text they have to read and answer questions about. The results of this assessment indicates to the teacher whether the child is ready to move on.