The Coombes CE Primary School
READING POLICY : SCHEME OF WORK
Objectives
 Enjoyment of reading and involvement in the reading process.
 Care and confidence when handling books.
 The ability to gain information from reading.
 Introductions to different features of different texts.
 Encouragement to use knowledge gained from reading to develop an
understanding of the structure, vocabulary and grammar of Standard
English.
Reading Resources
The most important resource is the book itself.
 Reading books are colour-coded generally in line with National
Curriculum levels. Children will read books of their own choice with
guidance from the teacher and will be encouraged to read widely from
classroom bookshelves and the school libraries. Children are taught
the ‘five-finger’ method of self assessment for choosing books to aid
independence.
 Classes will have regular silent reading periods.
 Children will read aloud regularly to teachers or visitors, either
individually or in a group. Teachers will hold regular reading
conferences with pupils to assess progress.
 Children will be encouraged to take books home to read and share with
parents and friends. They are expected to try to read on a daily basis
at home.
 Each class has its own bookshelves with fiction and non-fiction books.
 The central libraries contain fiction and non-fiction books. [Non-fiction
books have Dewey numbers to aid classification].
 Talks from librarians and authors are promoted to encourage interest in
books.
 Books are checked and rotated as well as being added to regularly.
 A book club operates in school monthly and regular book fairs from
different providers to enable children to purchase books.
 Attractive displays of books are arranged to interest the children.
 Weekly sessions are held in the library from which the children choose a
book to read at home. The library is also open in the morning and
supervised by trained ‘Librarians’ to encourage children to borrow and
return books regularly.
 A special “Book Week” is held annually to promote a love of reading.
 Each class finishes the school day with sharing a book or using book
related activities to encourage engagement with a text.
 Staff share favourite books in Assemblies.
 Classes are encouraged to share books and their own stories with each
other on a regular basis.
Reading Activities
Many of the suggested activities will cover several levels of the National
Curriculum with a different emphasis or expectation.
As a general rule:
1. Children in Y3 and Y4 will be working on Levels Two and Three.
2.
Children in the Y5 and Y6 will be working on Levels Three, Four and
Five.
Additional resources will be employed as appropriate.
Assessment opportunities will be planned into termly projects and much of
the assessment will be on-going. Regular assessment will be made in reading
conferences, during guided reading sessions and sometimes by the use of
miscue analysis. Phonic analysis will be assessed using Letters and Sounds
materials and there will be regular, differentiated group work timetabled for
every class (see separate scheme of work for KS2 Spelling and Phonics).
Progress of basic sight vocabulary recognition will be recorded on the
National Literacy Strategy lists and decoding ability will be assessed using
Salford as well as teacher assessment from colleagues.
Many of the reading experiences of Key Stage Two will be cross-curricular
and will be planned into each individual topic.
Use of Books
Throughout the levels children should be taught:
1
The 'book' words - author, publisher, illustrator, spine, bibliography,
index etc.
2
The use and care of books - careful handling, correct turning of pages,
selection of books, careful storage etc.
EARLY READING SKILLS
Level 1
Pupils recognise familiar words in simple texts. They use their knowledge of
letters and sound-symbol relationships in order to read words and to establish
meaning when reading aloud. In these activities they sometimes require
support. They express their response to poems, stories and non-fiction by
identifying aspects they like.
Activities
1 Provision of a wide variety of books.
2 Provision of an attractive book comer.
3 Encourage children to look at and talk about books.
4 Children to be read to, and to read for themselves a range of simple
books
5 Sharing of books to talk about the differences between illustrations and
text.
6 Choose stories with a strong element of repetition to encourage
prediction.
7 Share story-books without words.
8 Provide opportunities for children to listen to and join in simple rhymes.
9 To ensure that children recognise that print conveys meaning.
10 To recognise own name and simple labels and notices.
11 To follow left/right direction in text.
12 To read to younger children.
13 To play reading games.
14 To provide opportunities to listen to and discuss poetry.
15 To ensure that a range of non-fiction books are available.
16 To make own reference books especially connected with the topic.
17 To illustrate stories and poems e.g. as a cartoon strip.
18 Use of dramatisation of stories and poems.
Knowledge of letters and sound/symbol relationship
1 To teach the alphabet.
2 To teach the initial sounds, final consonants and medial vowels.
3 Display alphabet frieze.
4 Make own alphabet book.
5 Alphabet games.
6 Phonological awareness such as rhymes and segmentation of words into
syllables.
RESOURCES FOR EARLY READING SKILLS.
1 A wide variety of story poetry and non-fiction books.
2 Starter Stile
3 Stile tablets on phonics, comprehension, grammar and punctuation.
4 Letter fans
5 Magnetic alphabet letters.
6 Puppets .
7 Home-made games e.g. Dominoes, Bingo, Snap, and worksheets.
(Many books are available to find ideas for games)
8 Computer programmes.
9 Games to teach the words N.L.S. List of Most Frequently Used Words.
10 For phonological awareness - Peter Hatcher - Phonological Training
Package; Letters and Sounds resources; Progression in Phonics
resources; Jolly Phonics.
11 A selection of various games such as Swap cards.
12 Catch-up and Toe by toe support programmes.
SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF CUEING STRATEGIES
Level 2
They use more than one strategy such as phonic, graphic, syntactic and
contextual,in reading unfamiliar words and establishing meaning.
Activities
For phonic cues: Continuation of work at Level 1.
 Games to consolidate letter names and sounds e.g. I-Spy.
 Matching pictures and sounds, or objects with sounds.
 When the phonics of three-letter consonants are mastered continue with
further phonic work:
 initial consonant blends
 initial consonant digraphs
 intial consonant blends
 final consonant digraphs
 vowel digraphs and split vowel digraphs
 soft 'c' and soft 'g'
 silent letters e.g.'k' and ‘g’
 difficult endings -less,-ness,-ious,-tion, -sion, -able etc
 Continue work on phonological awareness.
For graphic cues: Matching pictures, objects and geometric shape.
 Play picture Lotto and Kim’s game.
 Identify missing parts of pictures.
 Sort objects by shape and size.
 Matching letters and shapes.
 Writing letters in clay, sand, shaving foam or other sensory medium.
 Use of plastic letters for multi-sensory approach.
 Draw children's attention to shape of words.
 Provision of labels for displays.
For syntactic cues: Re-reading of sentences questioning if sounds correct.
 Use of cloze procedure with children discussing possible answers.
For contextual cues: Encourage child to read forward or back to make a sensible guess.
 Consideration of a picture to provide a cue.
 Discussion of text with child as regard to meaning.
 Introduction of group reading and discussion of text.
 Draw attention to punctuation cues.
Resources
 Use of computer programs e.g. Wordshark, Lexia.
 Use of cloze procedure with deletion of nouns, adjectives ,verbs,
prepositions or conjunctions.
 Use of taped stories to accompany texts.
 Books and anthologies made by children.
 Games and work-sheets both commercial and teacher-designed.
 Similar resources as for early reading skills.
 Activities from Additional Literacy Support programme.
 For those finding reading difficult use of Tracks programme with a
specially trained teacher.
 Use of Rainbow books, Wolf Hill and Read On Series and other regularly
up-dated reading materials including those with CDs included - books
with a higher interest but designed to help the less able reader.
DEVELOPING PRESENTATIONAL SKILLS
Level 3
Pupils read a range of texts fluently and accurately.
Activities
 Provision of a variety of story-tellers such as teachers, parents, other
children and professionals.
 Provision of story-tapes .
 Children to tape stories for other children.
 Watch DVD’s and film extracts of story-tellers and discuss presentation.
 Drama activities to take on role of various characters.
 Dramatisation of stories and poems.
 Writing and performing of puppet plays.
 Character analysis of people in story.
 Taking part in class assembly.
 Use of published group plays.
Resources
 Invitation of story-tellers e.g. during Book Week.
 Story-tapes available in school.
 DVDs available in school or resources from ICT websites e.g Teacher’s
TV.
 Props and dressing-up for drama.
 Published plays.
RESPONSES TO LITERATURE
In Key Stage 2 the range of literature studied should cover:
 a range of modern fiction
 some long-established children’s fiction
 a range of good quality modem poetry
 some classic poetry
 texts drawn from a variety of cultures and traditions
 myths, legends and traditional stories.
The National Literacy Strategy suggests the following genres be studied in
Key Stage 2:
(although the National Literacy Strategy is no longer adhered to and a
cross-curricular approach is used it is useful to have this for reference
when planning to ensure coverage throughout the school)
Year 3
Term1:
Term 2:
Term 3:
Stories with familiar settings; poems; poems based on
observation and the senses; shape poems.
Myths, legends, fables, parables; traditional stories; stories with
related themes; oral and performance poetry from different
cultures.
Adventure and mystery stories; stories by the same author;
humorous poetry, poetry that plays with language, word puzzles,
puns, riddles.
Year 4
Term 1:
Term 2:
Term 3:
Year 5
Term 1:
Term 2:
Term 3:
Historical novels and short novels; playscripts; poems based on
common themes e.g. school, space, animals, families, feelings.
Stories/novels about imagined worlds: sci-fi, fantasy adventures;
stories in series; classic and modern poetry, including poems
from different cultures and times.
Stories/ short novels etc. which raise issues, e.g. bullying,
bereavement, injustice; stories by the same author; stories from
other cultures; range of poetry in different forms e.g. haiku,
cinquain, couplets, lists, thin poems, alphabets, conversations,
monologues, syllabics, prayers, epitaphs, songs, rhyming forms
and free verse.
Novels, stories and poems by significant children’s writers;
playscripts; concrete poetry.
Traditional stories, myths legends, fables from a range of
cultures;
longer classic poetry, including narrative poetry.
Novels, stories and poems from a variety of cultures and
traditions; choral and performance poetry.
Year 6
Term 1: Classic fiction, poetry and drama by long-established authors,
including, where appropriate, study of a Shakespeare play;
adaptations of classics on film/T.V.
Term 2: Longer established stories and novels selected from more than
one genre e.g. mystery, humour, sci-fi, historical, fantasy worlds
etc. to study and compare; range of poetic forms e.g kennings,
limericks, riddles, cinquain, tanka, poems written in other form
(as letter, advert, diary entries, conversations) free verse,
nonsense verse.
Term 3:
Comparison of work by significant children’s authors and poets
(a) work by the same author
(b) different authors’ treatment of the same themes.
Level 2
Pupils’ reading of texts shows understanding and is generally accurate.They
express opinions about major events or ideas in stories, poems and nonfiction.
Activities
 Recall of factual information.
 Description of characters.
 Prediction of future events.
 Regular reading conferences with teacher and regular group guided reading
sessions.
 Group discussions of comparison of characters and stories.
 Writing letters to favourite story characters.
 Role-play with children playing favourite characters.
 Sequencing pictures and/or sentences in the right order.
Level 3
They read independently, using strategies appropriately to establish
meaning. In responding to fiction and non-fiction they show understanding
of the main points and express preferences.
Activities
 Comparison of the beginnings, development and endings of stories.
 Prediction of story from cover of book.
 Discussion of 'blurb' on back cover.
 Prediction of what characters in illustrations might be saying.
 Discussion of various openings of books or start of chapters.
 Provision of different openings or endings for children to predict story.
 Regular reading conferences with the teacher.
 Group guided reading of texts and discussions.
Level 4
In responding to a range of texts, pupils show understanding of significant
ideas, themes, events and characters, beginning to use inference and
deduction. They refer to the text when explaining their views.
Activities
 Children to provide missing title for newspaper extracts.
 Children given titles only to predict the content of newspaper articles.
 Writing of letter to friend in role as one of characters in story describing one
of the events and own feelings.
 Sorting a variety of texts e.g. advertisements, letters, poems, narrative,
reports, and comparison of language structures.
 Writing of individual book reviews.
 Group book reviews .
 Child to promote a favourite book to others in group.
 Consideration of differences between stories and poetry and use of
appropriate vocabulary e.g. character, setting, verse, rhyme.
 Children give reasons for preferences, referring to texts in detail.
 Child given a list of statements to decide which are true or false according to
the evidence of the text.
 Children choose a favourite poem to read to class and explain reasons.
 Regular reading conferences with teacher and group guided reading
sessions.
Levels 5/6
Level 5. Pupils show understanding of a range of texts, selecting essential points
and using inference and deduction where appropriate. In their responses, they
identify key features, themes and characters, and select sentences, phrases and
relevant information to support their views.
Extending Level 5 In reading and discussing a range of texts, pupils identify
different layers of meaning and comment on their significance and effect. They
give personal responses to literary texts, referring to aspects of language,
structure and themes in justifying their views.
Activities
 Comparison of vocabulary used in a variety of texts and its effect on the
reader. Writing of own text using similar vocabulary.
 Class book of authors' riddles and puns.
 Consideration of issues and implications of accents and dialects. Listening
to videos and audio tapes to identify regional origins.
 Consideration of metaphors and similes in texts and their effect on readers.
 Use of etymological dictionaries to identify words absorbed from other
languages.
 Consideration of change of vocabulary over time.
 Checking for 'realism' in relation to the author's presentation.
 Consideration of newspaper articles on emotive themes to look for bias and
statements not backed by evidence.
 Recognition of common stereotypes and questioning of generalisations.
 Consideration of T.V. news programmes and documentaries looking for
bias, and detecting fact or opinion.
 Study of the positive and negative images and their effect on the emotions
of the reader.
 Role-play in presenting arguments for and against a cause, and
consideration by others of effectiveness of argument.
 Group reading of texts. Discussion of likes and dislikes, similarities and
differences of opinion, feelings etc.
 Selection of one chapter or episode which have found interesting or exciting
and explanations of the reasons for the choice and the skills of the writer
to produce this.
 Listening to a selection of parts of stories on the same theme e.g. ghost
stories and compare their effectiveness and suggest reasons for this.
 Writing of diary assuming identity of one character.
 Group re-telling of story from point of view of one character, or each
member take a different character and compare versions.
 Consideration of motives of characters and personality strengths and
weaknesses.
 Having read half-way through a book write next chapter or ending.
 Individual reading conferences with teacher to discuss preferences such as
o book preferences and reason
o favourite author
o reasons for preferring one author to another
o differences in style
o consideration of motive and theme
o moral implications of story etc.
Resources
 Books in class library and central library.
 Reading Sets, Models for Writing, Literacy Directions, Literacy Times.
 Story-books with tape.
 Newspaper articles.
 DVDs with stories, news items and documentaries.
 Selection of advertisements, reports and letters.
 Props for role-play
 Learning Platform and other ICT resources
 Teacher-prepared worksheets.
DEVELOPING INFORMATION SKILLS
Level 2
They express opinions about major events or ideas in non-fiction.
Activities
 Range of alphabet activities suggested in Early Reading Skills.
 Use of simple dictionaries.
 Worksheets for organising words alphabetically [first letter only]
 Checking of spelling using word- lists or dictionaries.
 Use of spell-check with word processor.
 Using simple information books.
 Making own simple information books.
Level 3
In responding to…non-fiction they show an understanding of the main
points and express preferences. They use their knowledge of the alphabet
to locate books and
find information.
Activities
DART activities - Directed Activities to the Text. Most of these activities will be
group activities such as :
 text completion with single words, phrases, sentences.
 sequencing
 prediction
 table completion
 diagram completion
 setting questions on the text
 summaries of text etc.
 Mind-mapping for key points for research and formulation of questions
 Production of worksheet for younger child.
 Making of own simple information book.
 Sorting a selection of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction books
o according to their relevant classifications and discussion of
o differences.
 Discussion of work of authors, illustrators, publishers.
 Prediction of contents from cover [with title covered].
 Use of contents/index pages and glossary.
 Inclusion of contents page for own topic books and class books.
 Sorting of names of authors for fiction books.
 Classifying pictures and subjects according to subject areas e.g.
 cars under transport.
 Introduction of the Dewey system.
 Provision of worksheets to develop skills of 2nd/3rd letter
 alphabetical ordering.
 Finding of information in computer - based sources.
Level 4
They locate and use ideas and information.
Activities
 Continue work for familiarisation of the Dewey system.
 Trip to local library for demonstration of library cataloguing system.
 Use of thesaurus.
 Use of encyclopaedias, catalogues, newspapers, brochures and leaflets.
 Use of tables, globe, atlases and maps.
 Use of telephone directories, manuals, timetables and journals.
 Development of scanning strategies to locate information.
 Development of strategies for skimming to gain an overall impression of the
text.
 Reading in detail to obtain specific information.
 Finding of information in computer-based sources.
 Learning how to make notes for research purposes by underlining key
phrases.
Level 5
They retrieve and collate information from a range of sources.
Level 6
They summarise a range of information from different sources.
Activities
 Continue development of skimming and scanning skills e.g. looking up train
times.
 Interpretation of plans, diagrams etc.
 Development of skills in the interpreting of the use of italics, abbreviations,
colour keys, pronunciation guides etc.
 Continue use of I.CT.
 Comparison of non fiction texts on the same subject.
 Practice at making succinct notes.
 Distinguishing between fact and opinion.
 Consideration of arguments critically.
The N.L.S. suggests the introduction to the use of the following range of
non-fiction material(although the National Literacy Strategy is no longer
adhered to and a cross-curricular approach is used it is useful to have this
for reference when planning to ensure coverage throughout the school):
Year 3
Term 1:
Information books on topics of interest, non-chronological
reports, dictionaries, thesauruses.
Term 2:
Instructions, dictionaries without illustrations, thesauruses
Term 3:
Letters written for a range of purposes, alphabetic texts,
directories, encyclopaedias, indexes.
Year 4
Term 1:
Reports and articles in newspapers and magazines,
instructions.
Term 2:
Information books on same or similar themes, explanation.
Term 3:
Year 5
Term 1:
Term 2:
Term 3:
Year 6
Term1:
Term2:
Term3:
Persuasive writing adverts, circulars, flyers. Discussion
texts, debates editorials, information books.
Recounts, observational records, news reports, instructional
texts.
Non-chronological reports, explanations.
Persuasive writing, dictionaries, thesauruses, I.T. sources.
Autobiography and biography, diaries, journals, letters,
journalistic writing, non-chronological reports.
Discussion texts, formal writing.
Explanations, non-chronological reports, reference texts.
Resources
 Alphabet sheets and letters.
 Worksheets to teach alphabetical order.
 A variety of dictionaries.
 Reference books of varying level of difficulty.
 Teacher-prepared resources to support DART activities.
 Use of computer programs – use of Learning Platform, Internet etc.
 A selection of thesauri, encyclopaedias, catalogues, newspapers,
brochures, leaflets, tables, globes, atlases, maps, telephone directories,
manuals, timetables, journals etc.
 Dewey system catalogues.
 “Reading for Information” Scholastic Sets.