Vision
We are relentless in our vision that every student will learn how to read, can read to learn and will love books at Bede Academy. We want all our students to read texts which challenge them, evoke powerful emotions, seek to overcome prejudice, build character, inspire them to read more and that support and nurture the skills to unlock their potential. Carefully selected literature ensures that students develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually because all our young people are valued, challenged and inspired at our academy.
Teaching and Developing Reading at Bede Academy:
At Bede Academy, we support reading and vocabulary through the Reading Five:
- Teaching and developing reading skills (decoding)
- Developing reading comprehension
- Supporting struggling students
- Ensuring students read challenging texts as experts
- Instilling a love of reading
How do we teach students to read?
The foundations of literacy…
In Nursery, we value the importance of strong language and communication skills for all children. Our nursery curriculum is specifically designed to ensure that all children have access to daily, high-quality speaking and listening, language and communication experiences and activities. We know that this is vital to ensure that children are ready to begin their journey to become independent readers. We use the Launchpad for Literacy framework, which ensures that children develop the full range of skills needed.
For ideas to help support your child at home, please see the Early Years sections of the website
At Bede Academy, we use Read Write Inc to teach all our students to read confidently and independently. Read Write Inc is a systematic, rigorous and engaging programme to teach EVERY child to read by the age of six. Read Write Inc is a proven and highly successful programme which is used by many schools to ensure that all children can read and write using a systematic synthetic phonics approach.
Who will follow the Read Write Inc programme?
When children enter Reception, they begin their Read Write Inc journey, and they will follow this through their time in key stage one (years 1 and 2). All children are assessed every half term to ensure that staff can teach children at the right level and that no child falls behind. All children will read books which are specifically matched to their individual level, and these will be used at school and accessed at home. The Read Write Inc programme will also be followed by older children to catch up, using the RWI Fresh Start element.
How often will my child read with a teacher?
Children will read their RWI books every day with a trained member of staff. These books are kept in school. However, each week, parents and guardians will have access to a copy of this text via the Oxford Owl website for you to access at home. In addition to this, your child will bring home an additional book, matched at their individual level, for them to read to you at home. We ask that you listen to your child read every day for 5 minutes. Research tells us that this has a hugely positive impact on the progress children make.
How do we support reading skills for all our students?
Through our knowledge rich curriculum, we develop students’ ability to read complex texts through the deliberate teaching of comprehension skills, whilst also providing targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject.
Our students engage in daily shared reading of the texts within our Reading Spine, which are read as part of our Read Aloud and DEAR sessions. This develops fluency in their reading, enhances their curriculum knowledge, allows them to consider ideas, events or perspectives from the wider world and experience the restorative, emotive and academic power of reading for pleasure. Hearing an adult read out loud during these daily sessions gives an opportunity to ‘make the implicit explicit by expertly modelling fluency through appropriate use of pace, expression, punctuation and phrasing’ (Education Endowment Foundation 2021).
Our bespoke Reading Spine ensures our students have read texts of quality to develop their reading ability. We have developed our Reading Spine text choices through both our core virtues and Doug Lemov’s Resistant Text concepts to ensure text progression builds readiness for future reading and gives our students an opportunity to read texts they would not ordinarily choose themselves.
In addition, once students have completed their early reading teaching, they follow the Accelerated Reading programme to further develop reading skills. Within this programme, texts are specifically selected to match students’ reading ability. In addition, some students who struggle to decode will continue with RWI Fresh Start in KS2 and 3 and interventions focused on word awareness and fluency are also targeted to those in need of support with their reading. These programme are delivered by trained staff.
How do we foster a love of reading?
Our dedicated library spaces provide students with an engaging and rich environment through which to read and connect with literature. At both sites, student librarians encourage reading by supporting the librarian, through a reading mentor scheme and the library trolley visits. Our community celebrates reading through writer visits, World Book Day and after school reading events.
Links:
· For more information about Launchpad Literacy please see here: https://www.launchpadforliteracy.co.uk/
· For further information about the importance of using RWI to teach reading, please see: https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/series/rwi/?region=uk
· The RWI Ruth Miskin parents’ page is available here: http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/
