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At Lark Hill Community Primary School, we value reading as a key life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We believe that all pupils should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts.
It is our intention to immerse pupils in the wonders of quality texts (from a range of authors and across the
curriculum) to instil a love for reading, a passion for discovery and a confidence to explore their imagination through our Book-Led curriculum. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking, listening and discussion and be secure in their knowledge of reading, using this all to support them in their writing.
Our intent is to provide pupils with a high-quality education in English that will develop pupils' ability to speak, read and write with great fluency, master the mechanics of both reading and writing and develop a love and true interest for English so that they can communicate their thoughts, ideas and emotions effectively. This means, that by the end, children will have the phonetic knowledge and spelling rules to be able to write. They will have an awareness of the different sentence types and language for effect. Children will know about different genres and text types which will be reflected in their own writing. They will also be clear on the purpose of their writing which is to inform, entertain of persuade.
Children begin phonics in Nursery which focuses on growing children’s vocabulary through role-play, discussion, building sentences and using productive questioning. It places huge emphasis on developing children’s love of reading through enticing story and poetry times. By the last term of Nursery, children participate in speed sound sessions, where children are taught to say the sounds of letters with the help of mnemonics, to blend the sounds into words and read simple word blending books. This gives them a flying start before going into the Reception class.
In Reception children will continue where they left off from nursery and new starters will be assessed. In Reception and Year 1, children are grouped based on ability to ensure that they make rapid progress in accuracy and fluency of reading. Children are assessed at the end of each half term to ensure accurate groupings and to make sure that children making slower progress are identified. In the Early Years and Year 1, phonics is embedded into the environment, giving children the opportunity to apply their phonic skills during independent learning time. Children will continue on the RWI phonics programme until they are confident and fluent readers: most children are off the programme at the end of Year 1.
In Year 2, some children will continue to access Read Write Inc phonics (if they did not pass the phonics Screening assessment). These children will be assessed half-termly and be moved off the programme when they are ready. Once children have completed Read Write Inc phonics, they then move onto the Read Write Inc Spelling.
For support or help with Phonics, please visit our Phonics page.
We focus on different strands of reading in both word reading and comprehension. In comprehension, we begin with retrieval, explanation and comparison. In EYFS, re-reading books to build confidence and understanding; progressing to discussing, comparing and evaluating in depth across a wide range of genres in Year 6. We begin in Year 1 by making simple inferences about texts such as what has happened, and progress to comparing and analysing different accounts of the same event. From Year 3 upwards, there is a focus on developing a knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes and their relationship in texts when reading aloud which allows us to develop our fluency.
During the course of the week, children will listen to a teacher reading, take part in paired reading, do some independent reading and complete reading tasks. Throughout the week, the focus of reading sessions changes. The skills that are being practised daily could be; inference, retrieval, explanation, comparison, sequencing, summarising, predicting, or vocabulary.
Lark Hill are implementing Ready Steady Read Together for their reading curriculum. This is a structured, whole-class shared reading programme from Year 2 to Year 6. Designed to develop comprehension skills and support strong reading outcomes, these daily, lessons incorporate metacognitive strategies and feature high-quality, diverse texts by exceptional children’s authors. This inclusive reading scheme empowers teachers to deliver effective comprehension teaching across the primary reading curriculum, promoting consistency from year to year. Texts are frequently tied to genres, authors and texts which the children have been or will be studying in Writing lessons. This allows pupils to further embed the vocabulary taught in different contexts.
Reading for pleasure is integrated through the provision so that children always have access to books in addition to their English and phonics lessons. This is a mix of both the adult reading and independent reading from the children, with a class library children can select quality texts from to read at home.
All children are listened to read on a half termly basis (by their class teacher) and additional weekly
support is given by LSAs. This is monitored closely to track progress. Please remember that your child's reading record is in school each day and that it is signed 5 times per week as per our home-school agreement.
Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets
the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy
Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations.
Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to
support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and
purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and
meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their
writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence
accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing.
We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and
vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly
before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently
and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic
writers, ready for the next stage of their education.
Our spelling curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets
the needs of all children. We follow the award-recognised Ready Steady Spell by Literacy
Counts to ensure that all pupils become fluent, accurate spellers. Our spelling curriculum
is research-informed and impact-proven, helping children secure the essential skills and
strategies they need to spell confidently across the curriculum. Through engaging
activities, consistent teaching routines and regular opportunities to revisit prior learning,
we help children move spelling knowledge into their long-term memory.
Our aim is to build confident writers who are equipped with the tools they need to
communicate clearly and effectively. Spelling is taught in a clear and systematic way, with
regular reviews and assessments. Additional support is provided through Ready Steady
Spell: Go sessions, which offer targeted intervention for pupils who need further
consolidation.
Handwriting is developed right from nursery following the ISHA 'Achieving Excellence in Handwriting' programme which promotes excellent handwriting and high quality presentation skills.
Talk and P4C:
At Lark Hill, our Talk Project increases discussion between children to enhance reasoning skills as well as helping our pupils become more confident speakers. Our Talk Promises are a guideline to effective pupil talk within the classroom. The talk promises were developed by staff and pupils across the partnership.
Our Talk Promises are:
We show we are listening by looking at the speaker.
We join in because all ideas lead to learning.
We speak in full sentences in a clear voice that can be heard by everyone.
We give each other time to think.
We build on, or challenge with respect, each other’s ideas.
We ask questions if we don’t understand or would like to learn more.
