At Abington Vale Primary School, we aspire for every child to become a fluent and life-long reader. Our reading curriculum aims to develop confident and fluent readers who read for understanding; whist gaining knowledge across the curriculum though their love and appreciation of books.
Reading weaves throughout our entire curriculum, from explicit reading lessons to exploring a range of texts linked to the wider curriculum areas taught across the term.
Reading Books
All children from Reception to Year 6 take home a book which is suitable for their reading attainment as well as a library book to develop reading for pleasure.
All children who are still on the systematic phonics scheme Read Write Inc (RWI) are assessed regularly and are given a RWI book which matches the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they know. All RWI books are decodable so that children can practise, at school and at home, their increasing knowledge of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences and their blending skills in meaningful contexts.
Once children have moved on from decodable books, all children are assessed regularly and are given an Accelerated Reader book level which is based on the results from their Star Reading Assessment. Children are given a book level range in which they can self-select books from, but teachers are encouraged to guide them in their selection.
Library
All classes visit the library once a week. During their library session the children have the opportunity to take out a new library book and time is allocated for the teacher to share and discuss a range of poems, stories and non-fiction texts with the whole class.
Parental Involvement
Parents are key to supporting children’s reading development, especially reading for pleasure. We encourage daily home reading and ask parents to spend time reading with, and talking to their child about what they have read. We encourage parents to record their child’s reading in their individual reading record. If children read at least 5 times a week, they will receive a token for their house team towards our whole school reading challenge. As a school, we support parents’ confidence and understanding of the teaching of reading by providing parent workshops and phonics support via our online platforms.
Our Reading Offer
- Visit to local care homes to read to the residents.
- Pet As Therapy
- Volunteer readers
- Reading buddies
- Reading celebrations (World Book Day, National Poetry Day)
- Reading challenge tokens
- Parent visits
Feedback from our parental survey about reading at Abington Vale.
'My daughters reading journey has been exceptional with Abington Vale, their support and guidance has been outstanding. My daughter loves reading and is very good at reading thanks to the school's support and willingness to work closely with me as a parent.'
'My child’s teacher is very supportive and writes helpful comments in their reading record to support us at home'
'There is a very good focus on reading skills throughout all the years. There has always been support and time made for this. The kids are rewarded with tokens which is a lovely incentive.'
'Have seen a huge development in my child’s fluency through the RWI programme and RWI book bag books'
'I think the reading resources given by the school are great. My child has grown in confidence and is starting to enjoy reading! Thank you for all being so amazing'