At Crescent Primary School, we are readers! The purpose of reading is to gain meaning from text. The intent of our Reading curriculum is to work alongside our Phonics & word reading curriculum to ensure all pupils achieve success and enjoyment when reading, whilst also addressing the challenges posed for many of our children from different socio-economic backgrounds. All stakeholders recognise that reading is a vital skill to access the curriculum and wider world: we know that many of our children join our school significantly below the expected standard for their age. This is why ‘wonderful words’ is one of our Curriculum Drivers. Our whole-school curriculum, not just our Reading curriculum, should expose children to a wide range of words and their meanings in order to close the ‘vocabulary gap’. We intend for our pupils to receive high-quality early reading teaching through our validated Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme (Supersonic Phonic Friends) and also develop their comprehension skills through this Reading curriculum. We intend for our pupils to gain both knowledge and skills in how to effectively understand what they have read, which will in turn allow them to be skilled at ‘creating connections’ with their peers and communities to understand ‘Our place in our world’, but also in the links between their learning. We understand that reading does not just happen in our Reading lessons, but in all areas of the curriculum. We value the learning and enjoyment that can be found in sharing stories, and make time in our weekly timetables to read books and stories to our pupils to support them in having ‘healthy minds’. By exposing them to quality texts, and examples of ‘the best that has been thought and said’, we aim to encourage them to ‘Dream Big’ and know that being a reader is part of our ‘Crescent Values’. These values underpin all that we do, and include offering excellent provision for our most vulnerable pupils and those with SEND and supporting these pupils to become skilled, fluent readers is our priority. We intend to support pupils whose reading is below what is expected of their age with rapid intervention. 

By the time our children leave Crescent Primary School, we intend for them to develop a love of reading and the written word, and to be skilled readers that can achieve academic success.