Reading Vision

(Subject Lead: Mrs C. Mountford)

It is with great determination that we strive to engender a lifelong love of reading and language through the immersion of stories and texts that interest, inspire and excite our children. Our English curriculum is derived around a sequence of high quality age-appropriate texts. We use each book to create opportunities to develop reading fluency and comprehension with a focus on key vocabulary, reading strategies and skills. We strive for children to read a variety of genres and use these as models for our guided reading sessions. The staff at Alexandra Junior School are committed to providing a reading culture and supporting children in developing good reading habits that will support them throughout their education, in their personal life and beyond.

Our reading curriculum is designed to produce productive, creative and well-educated students. Our Alexandra Promise to our pupils is to provide them with opportunities to excel within school context-based drivers (Excel yourself, Embrace yourself, Explore the world, Engage with others, Express yourself). Whole class teaching of reading, while being fully inclusive, allows teachers to plan activities that allow children to practise using the relevant reading skills: vocabulary, retrieval, summary, inference, prediction, compare and contrast and author choice. We immerse our pupils in the language rich environment, which fully supports their development. Through the curriculum and our practice, we strive to develop a culture of reading through consistently using high quality texts, that demonstrate aspirational language and grammatical structure; a variety of texts that inspire and enthuse children; texts with themes that help our children to develop and promote the school’s values as well as ensuring their personal, social, spiritual and emotion needs are met and where children are able to progress and reach their full potential.

Reading for pleasure is at the heart of all that we do here at Alexandra Junior School and we have pupils that have developed the habit and passion for reading regularly and widely. The vast array of opportunities supports the children in becoming skilled in reading, but most importantly our children love nothing more than getting lost in the pages of a book. Early reading is high on our agenda and we recognise that learning to read is a crucial skill needed throughout a child’s life.

We welcome you to review the Intent and Implementation documents to see how reading in the curriculum is put into practice.

As part of the English Excellence Partnership schools in Stoke on Trent took part in a reading project to raise the profile of reading for pleasure. Five lucky schools would win £1000 to spend on new books in association with Waterstones. However, to be in with a chance of winning the children at AJS had to complete 30 different reading challenges. We were so proud of the results, and guess what? WE WON! Not only that, but the children in Alexandra Junior School now have reading for pleasure stops throughout the school – including their very own Starbook’s Cafe.

The children also completed a school wide survey to find out the school’s top 20 books. Watch the video to find out which books we chose.

World Book Day

We had a brilliant day dressing up as characters or as the theme of a non-fiction book.

We took part in activities that showed how reading is part of lots of different school subjects and had lots of fun!

Reading at home – expectations

Reading books aloud with children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop new language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written words.

At Alexandra Junior School we request that children read at least three times a week at home as part of their home learning. Please take time to enjoy and share a story with your child and then sign your child’s diary so that their class teacher knows that they have read. It is important to still read with your child, even when they become a confident reader so that a love for reading can continue to grow.

Once the book has finished, children take an accelerated reading quiz. They need an 80% score to pass and earn brag tag points. To find out more about accelerated reading please follow one of the links below:

Questioning

To ensure that the child’s reading deelopment continues to move forwards, we would encourage parents to question their child about what they are reading, at an appropriate time, to extend their reading and share their enjoyment of the book. Feedback from parents is that they struggle to find the relevant questions to ask their child after reaing.

Click on the Questioning when reading  button to view a website that will support you in asking your children questions about reading or the Reading domain questions button for a document with possible questions you could use to support your child’s understanding of the text.. These are by no means a full list of questions, but they are an excellent starting point when deciding what to ask your child when you read together.

Our Librarians

The librarians are busy preparing the library and wrapping books. Watch this space for the re-launch of don’t judge a book by its cover. The librarians are also on hand to help your child pick exciting stories

Words for life offers lots of useful strategies on how you can support reading at home.

BookTrust is the UK’s largest children’s reading charity. Through their book finder and online resources, you can find age appropriate books to enjoy with your child.