Mr Matthews is our Reading Lead supported by Mrs Watson.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about our computing curriculum please contact Mr Matthews pmatthews@crescent.notts.sch.uk

At Crescent Primary School, we believe that Reading is fundamental to children’s education. We encourage and plan for a range of reading experiences so that pupils can apply their reading skills across the curriculum.

We encourage children to read widely by promoting Reading through a range of approaches that include:

• Making links with children’s authors such as Gill Lewis, Bear Grylls and Tom Palmer.

• Sharing class books on screen through the ‘Kindle’ app.

• Reading e-books through Pearson’s ‘Bug Club’

• Giving responsibilities to pupils across school through roles such as ‘Reading Leaders’ and ‘Buddy Readers’.

• Holding and annual Scholastic Book Fair.
   

Reading books:
Our children access a wide variety of books in school. Each child takes home a reading book with a colour band to match a child’s independent reading ability. This is assessed through a range of methods including listening to them read, undertaking formal assessments and teacher judgements made in reading lessons. We ask that adults encourage reading at home, our expectation is at least 3 times a week and sign children’s red reading records. Children will be rewarded for reading at home.

The Oxford Reading Tree is the main spine of books used for our early readers. This is supplemented with a wide range of high-quality picture books, phonetically decodable books and books which rely on the child’s knowledge of sight words. The books offer a range of genre, such as plays, stories and poetry as well as non-fiction texts, such as recounts, information and instructions.

Reading lessons:
Our children take part in Reading lessons to develop their reading ability through specific teaching. Whilst the structure of Reading lessons will vary depending on the Year group of the children, the following skills are typical features of our Reading lessons:

• Shared reading of a text.

• Exploring vocabulary and unknown words.

• Reading the text closely to develop inference

• Undertaking written comprehension activities

Phonics:

At Crescent Primary School we strive to ensure all children become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. Each child will be given the opportunity to develop speaking and listening skills and establish the phonic knowledge and skills they need to become fluent readers and writers.

We use the DfE accredited Super Sonic Phonics programme to deliver a systematic, synthetic approach to the teaching of phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. We ensure that the teaching of phonics is high-quality, progressive yet engaging and lively. From Nursery through to Year 2 children are taught the appropriate phase for their year group. A long-term phonics plan is in place for the Early Years Foundation Stage, Year 1 and Year 2 which ensures teaching and learning is progressive and sequential, covering all aspects of the Super Sonic Phonics programme. Provision is made for children who need extra support or extension, through Super Sonic Phonic Friends interventions. It is recognised by all staff that phonics is a key skill in learning to read and write and needs to be taught daily. Any children who did not pass the Phonics Screening check at the end of Year 1 and Year 2, will receive extra phonics intervention during Key Stage 2.