Reading is a key tool for life. Our curriculum enables our children to develop a life-long love of reading as well as be ready, at the end of each phase, for the next stage of their education. We aim for all children to become fluent readers, using their phonological knowledge, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills across all areas of the curriculum.  Reading is very important to us at Manor Primary School; it helps us gain new knowledge, develop our imaginations and helps us relax. 

We are proud to have developed Manor Primary School's reading sign which sets out what we believe to be an essential reading diet for Years 2 to 6.

Interactive Reading Spine

Fluency

It is our goal for children to be accurately reading 90 words per minute by the end of Year 2 and 110 words per minute by the end of Year 6.  This means making very few mistakes in texts at the expected level and being capable of self-correcting when they do.  Fluent readers also read with expression; changing their voice according to punctuation cues indicating comprehension, and intonation; with the voice rising and falling as they read, reading ahead for cues, further indicating comprehension. Techniques for teaching fluency at Manor School include: 

• Repeated reading - re-reading a passage repeatedly, until fluent and accurate
• Echo reading - echoing the expression and intonation used by the class teacher
• Choral reading - reading together as a class
• Paired reading - children listening to one another read with expression and intonation and feeding back to each other
• Performance reading - acting out a text
• Text marking - using marks to indicate changes in pitch, speed and volume

When decoding and fluency are secure, children can begin to work on the three skills of comprehension: language in context, retrieval and inference, all underpinned by vocabulary skills.

Vocabulary

At Manor we use the Word Aware approach to teaching vocabulary.  Children are shown how to make links between words by recognising root words, suffixes and prefixes, finding synonyms and antonyms and using new vocabulary in their own work.  This approach, using both etymology and morphology to explore vocabulary, is engaging for children and empowers them to decode unknown words in the future.

Language in context

Explaining language in context is a key step on the journey to comprehension.  Using etymology and morphology together is not always enough to understand language in a variety of different contexts.  At Manor Primary School we explicitly teach the skills of reading around a word and activating prior knowledge to assign meaning to new vocabulary.

Retrieval

Children are taught how to skim a text to get a gist; identify key information in questions; scan for said information in a time efficient manner; use quotations or textual evidence to answer questions.

Inference, including prediction

When language in context and retrieval skills are secure, children are able to begin to make inferences.  They are taught how to read between the lines, make reference to the use of figurative language and justify their opinions and answers with reference to the text.

Assessment

Children at Manor Primary School are assessed formatively within each lesson and summatively at regular intervals. These give an accurate picture of where the gaps are and provide appropriate resources with which to make interventions.  Whole Class Reading can be adapted following careful analysis of assessment to suit the particular needs of any given cohort, class, group or individual.

Reading and vocabulary skills are taught with the same strategies and procedures across the curriculum.

Why do we teach in this way?

Reading is a vital skill needed to access content in all curriculum areas.  From maths to history and geography, via everything in between, comprehension of written material is necessary to be successful.  Nationally, pupils are not accessing expected standard content because of vocabulary deficit.  By teaching explicit vocabulary skills we are enabling students at Manor Primary School to understand questions and source materials at that expected level.

By sticking to a specific structure, learning and practising skills discreetly, one at a time, we reduce the cognitive load required to learn.  Children observe teachers modelling high quality, exemplar answers to support them in their own work.  Seeing these answers formulated, and hearing the thought process behind them narrated, serves as a road map to success.

The inference skills we teach are useful beyond reading comprehension; they are life skills.  There are many situations that require us to read mood from facial expressions or body language or ascertain a person’s opinions from what they say or how it is said.  Explicitly teaching inference empowers children to negotiate complex social situations.
In using a wide variety of high-quality text extracts, rather than whole texts, we are able to expose children at Manor Primary School to reading beyond their normal experience.  Our repertoire of texts includes extracts from many texts considered to be classics, that taken as a whole would not be suitable at best and daunting at worst.  When used in this fashion, with the language and meaning explored and analysed in close detail, texts are demystified.