Reading

Reading Curriculum

At Upton St Leonards C of E Primary school, reading is one of our main priorities. The Headteacher priorotises reading, staff foster a love of reading and reading and phonic CPD is prioritised with the aim of all staff being experts in early reading.

The aim of our reading curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. There is a highly structured approach to reading across KS2 which builds on the high quality phonics and early reading taught in KS1. Throughout the school the children are encouraged to extend their reading and to continually improve their knowledge, use and enjoyment of the English language.

Our reading curriculum is underpinned by high quality children’s novels, extracts, poetry and non-fiction.

Those children who need it, are still heard read throughout the week on a 1:1 basis.

Phonics and comprehension interventions are run daily and all children throughout the school have access to the Rapid Reading Active LEarn online platform.

Fluency and reading stamina is developed across all areas of the curriculum.

Teachers read aloud to their classes daily

Whole Class Reading

Reading is taught in 30 minute daily whole class reading lessons using VIPERS question stems. 

VIPERS stands for:

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explain

Retrieve

Sequence/Summary

Please click the link below for further information:

KS2 Reading Vipers

Reading for pleasure

We pride ourselves on being a reading school. We engage our whole school community in reading for pleasure in a variety of ways;

• Upton literature Festival- an annual event where children enjoy visiting authors, story tellers, book fairs and local library visits.
• Reading teachers = Reading pupils- We currently have 3 KS2 teachers on and 5 KS1 teachers on this fabulous reading group which is run through Cheltenham Literature festival.
• Community Book Club- We have a well attended community book club that meets at the school once a half term to discuss and share high quality children’s literature.
• Cheltenham Literature Festival – all children have the opportunity to visit the literature festival in the autumn
• Reading Rocks Newsletter- half termly newsletter that is circulated to all members of the school community. Full of book ideas, events and top tips to help support reading at home.

Click here to read the most recent edition of our Reading Rocks Newsletter

• Reading Ambassadors- Year 5 children carry out this important role in the school for two years.
• Bedtime Stories- We ran a shared initative in the autumn term where staff and parents shared videos of them reading bedtime stories. It helped highlight the importance of bedtime stories.
• Travelling story sack- KS1 take a turn taking home and enjoying the travelling story sacks.

USL Library

We have recently redeveloped our library with the addition of a beautiful mural painted by contemporary artist Stephanie Cole. Our library is a tranquil space for children to get lost in a book. It will be officially opened by Vashti Hardy (Blue Peter children’s book nominee 2020) on Friday 13th March. Our wonderful Reading Ambassadors will help to run their library. They will read and review every book that goes onto the shelf.

Useful websites to support our families with reading:

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading-owl/reading 

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/ 

https://www.booksfortopics.com/ 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/making-time-for-books-at-home