Reading

Welcome to our Reading page

Our Aim:

At Birkdale Primary, we aim to foster a love of reading for all children. As keen readers ourselves, our staff encourage an enjoyment of books and lifelong learning through texts. We are very keen on encouraging our children to read for pleasure. To promote this love of reading for pleasure each class, from nursery to Year 6, enjoys 10 minutes of ‘ERIC’ time (Everyone Reading In Class). This is where the teacher shares stories and poems with their class to promote a love and enjoyment of reading.

Listening to and reading a variety of different genres of stories means that the children are exposed to new vocabulary and it gives them a chance to really work on their comprehension skills too. To support this, we have a ‘Lending Library’ in each of our EYFS and KS1 classes and all classes in school have access to our school library, where they use interactive reading displays and can get inspiration from our teacher's 'top picks' of the week. We ensure the books we read are part of our rich reading diet and our books corners and library are representative of our wider school community and reflect the diversity of our children’s’ lived experiences.

We have a successful 'Reading Improvement Group' running at school which is made up of an ‘army’ of very helpful parents, carers and grandparents, who offer their time to provide extra 1:1 reading sessions for children. This group is fantastic for those children who struggle to read at home or who need extra support.

Guided Reading:

In Years 2-6, teachers lead whole-class guided reading sessions four times a week in which the children get to explore a full range of texts and genres. Throughout the year, children will read and analyse fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. Guided Reading lessons include:

An element of prosody (reading with feeling)
A close look at key vocabulary that children may be unfamiliar with
Unpicking the key skill focus for that lesson (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanations, retrieval, summarise)
Modelled answering of questions
Opportunities to apply the day's reading skills independently
Teaching fluency by model reading, echo reading, choral reading and paired reading

In addition to our Guided Reading sessions:

We also provide children with:

An English Ambassador
Regular Pupil Voice opportunities
Opportunities to read for pleasure
Regular, open ended discussions about stories and books
A lunch time Book Club, which is run by some of our Year 6 children

We also have a number of reading enrichment activities, including:

Regular visits to the school library
Participation in local reading competitions including the library summer reading challenge.
Celebrations for World Book Day with competitions and lots of amazing costumes!
Reading buddies- teaming up older and younger classes to share favourite books together.

KS1:

In KS1 the children continue to take home decodable reading books which are closely matched to their phonic ability. They are encouraged to read as much as possible to help with fluency and to support this we have a 'reading rewards' system in place where children get the chance to win a brand new book each week.

KS2:

The children in KS2 remain on the Oxford Reading Tree staged books which means their progress continues to be closely monitored by their teachers. Children also have their own book from the library that they pick themselves. We have invested PTA money into our library to provide a whole range of engaging non-fiction texts and fiction texts to promote a love of reading and our children are thoroughly enjoying this experience. We have a wonderful team of Year 6 librarians who support children changing their staged books and also recommend library books and sign these books in and out of the library.

Meet our English Ambassador:

'I love English, so being English Ambassador is amazing! I love how our school has so many amazing opportunities for everyone. In my role I help Mrs Biggs do all sorts of jobs: like organising World Book Day, helping come up with questions for our pupil voice and many more. I have so much fun and I am LOVING being Birkdale Primary's English Ambassador.'

Meet our Librarians:

'I like being a librarian because I like to read books and help people.'

'I love being a librarian because I like to recommend books and look after the library.'

'I love being a librarian because I like looking after the library and caring for the books in it.'

'I love being a librarian because I like to share my love of reading and I love to inspire others to carry on reading.'

Meet our Book Club:

'I love to run Book Club because I love to share my love of reading.'

'Why read by yourself when you can read with everyone else!?'

'I enjoy Book Club because I like doing the activities and talking about the book.'

'I help run a Year 5 Book Club where me and some other Year 6's pick a book for us all to read, talk about and enjoy. It is lots of fun and we all look forward to meeting up every week.'

'I love to read with friends'.

'Book Club is so much fun because you can become friends whilst reading a book.'

English Policy: