Reading - Our Reading Curriculum
INTENT:
At The Milestone School, we recognise that reading is a tool that allows our pupils to access the world around them. We consider enjoying and experiencing books and reading to be one of life’s most enriching skills. We aim to create a stimulating environment where children are encouraged to engage with and experience books and all forms of written material. The reading and literacy opportunities that we provide reflect the unique learning needs of our pupils. We provide a range of experiences that include multi-sensory approaches and encourage practical application of reading to support the development of life and independence skills in the community.
IMPLEMENTATION:
Our reading curriculum takes into account the needs of all pupils, of all ages. We use a Total Communication approach throughout the school which supports pupils to make links between print, spoken words and the marks that they make. Alongside the explicit teaching of reading, a rolling programme of genres supports breadth of reading experiences for all pupils. These are often linked to the topic-based learning that is being delivered in each of the three departments.
The offer for reading is based on the stage of learning that pupils are accessing. Please see more information below:
Overview of Reading at Milestone School
Pupils identified as not making progress through RWI consistently, may be better suited to a different reading approach. We use See and Learn (from Down Syndrome Education) as the programme for teaching whole word reading. Pupils accessing this will attend 3x 1-hour sessions per week focusing on reading and writing sequenced words.
IMPACT:
The impact of the teaching of reading at The Milestone School can be seen through ongoing assessment and discussion throughout the year. This includes:
- Continuous updating of SOLAR (our assessment tool)
- 3x yearly assessments for RWI and See and Learn
- Pupil progress meetings
- EHCP reviews
- Internal and external moderation
Where pupils are not making progress, barriers to learning will be assessed within the pupil progress meetings with members of SLT.
Pupils at The Milestone School do not undertake statutory testing, including the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1. As pupils progress through to the Senior Department, they use the phonics and reading skills that they have acquired to gain national accreditation in preparation for adult life (ASDAN/Pearson).
Reading for Pleasure
Reading for pleasure opens up new worlds for children. It gives them the opportunity to use their imagination to explore new ideas, visit new places and meet new characters.
At school, we do lots of things to promote reading for pleasure:
- Class texts – every class has a focus text usually linked to their topic. This is displayed on the door of every class for all to see.
- Daily story time – each class engages in a daily story session. This varies from adults reading to the class from a chosen book to sensory stories and story massage.
- Book areas – all classes have an area of the classroom dedicated to books and reading. These are engaging spaces for the pupils filled with books that are age appropriate for the pupils. Pupils also have access to audiobooks.
- Department libraries – each department has a library that is welcoming and filled with exciting books. Books in these spaces are updated on a termly basis.
Supporting Reading at Home
- Focus author – each term we have a new focus author for each department. We showcase the author’s work in our libraries, buy in new books and enjoy sharing them.
- Masked Reader – we are always on the look out for pupils and staff caught reading. When they are caught they are able to feature in our Masked Reader assembly with their picture up, their photo then gets added to the display.
- Continuous provision – areas around classes that pupils are able to access promote reading and storytelling.
- World Book Day – each year we celebrate World Book Day with a range of activities linked to love of books. These often include dressing up as our favourite characters, sharing story time with senior management and taking part in competitions.
Phonics - Read, Write Inc.
Read Write Inc. is a popular phonics scheme, approved by the DfE. Like all phonics schemes, it teaches children the sounds in English, the letters that represent them, and how to form the letters when writing. Read Write Inc. Phonics includes reading books written using only the letters they have learnt at each level (and a small number of separately taught tricky words). The children will quickly feel confident and successful.
The key principles of RWI are:
- Children learn the alphabetic code – 150+ graphemes that represent 44 speech sounds.
- Children learn the formation of letters and use this to write words at their phonetic level.
- Children learn strategies to attempt to read new words – segmenting and blending.
- Children learn to read with accuracy, fluency and expression.
- Children are able to comprehend what they have read – make predictions, discuss/compare key parts, answer questions, apply understanding to their life.
- Pupils are taught through a highly scaffolded, modelled style.
- Children are successful!
The RWI sequence of learning is as follows:
It is really important that the sounds for each of the single letters and special friends are pronounced correctly. Please see our video to support you with this.