At Melbourne Junior School, we're passionate about reading. In order to become proficient, independent learners, children need to be confident readers. During their time at our school, we hope that children will read and grow to love a variety of books. We aim to impart to them our passion for reading for pleasure.

The Early Reading Journey

In order for children to become confident readers, the knowledge and skills developed during the Early Reading Journey need to be secure. This is a priority for all children.

Whole Class Reading

Whole Class Reading takes place outside of the daily English lesson. Every child reads the same text and has their own copy of the book as whole books are used, supported by non-fiction texts. Quality texts are selected that will challenge not only the children's reading skills but also their thinking about a range of issues and topics.

Each session starts with vocabulary work and the children learn about new vocabulary before they encounter it in the next chapter they will read. The book is read in different ways: teacher as expert reader; choral reading and echo reading is used to develop fluency; group reading, paired reading and silent reading. Sometimes guided work also takes place, where a group of children will work with a teacher or teaching assistant.

The children then complete a range of activities based on the texts read that develop their comprehension skills.  DERIC is used to cover the different strands of reading. Work is completed within Reading Journals.

MJS Reading Spine and Recommended Reads

To ensure that the children are exposed to a wide range of quality texts, each year group has a reading spine which includes: core texts used in English lessons, Whole Class Reading books and books linked to foundation subjects. 

We have adopted the Poetry Spine, compiled by Pie Corbett, contained in The Works, to ensure that the children hear, read and perform a wide range of poems.

Recommended Reads lists for each year group are updated regularly and displayed in classrooms to support the children with their book choices.

Reading Conferences

Each term, the children take part in 1:1 reading conferences with their teacher. They will be heard read aloud to check decoding, fluency, expression and comprehension; also to check that the book chosen is appropriately challenging.

The reading choices of the children will be discussed and recommendations made about future book choices or authors will be made to encourage a rich, varied reading diet.

Impact

By the time children leave MJS they will:

• be able to read with greater confidence, fluency and understanding
• be able to access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment
• apply their knowledge of the reading skills automatically in order to understand and analyse an unfamiliar text in all areas if the curriculum.
• be able to speak enthusiastically and knowledgeably about the different texts read
• have a deeper knowledge and appreciation of different genres, styles, themes and authors
• be well-equipped to face the challenges that they will encounter at secondary school and beyond

At MJS, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.

The impact will be monitored through:

• the tracking of Key Reading Objectives identified for each year group
• Star Reading assessments are completed each term and reading ages are tracked
• optional reading papers are used at the end of each year
• book looks, learning walks, lesson observations and professional dialogue and reading conferences
• end of KS2 SATs results in reading