Learning
Reading at Northcote
Our Northcote Curriculum is designed with the intent to maximise potential of all of our pupils; intellectually, socially, morally, emotionally and culturally. We take every opportunity to encourage a love for learning within all of our pupils, based around a resilience for learning and achieving greatness. Most importantly we allow our children to learn in a safe and stimulating environment, where their views are valued.
Intent
‘First we learn to read, then we read to learn.’
This statements underpins our approach to reading, which is at the heart of everything we do here at Northcote. Books are central to all of our learning and you will find these in lots of areas around our school. We provide our children with daily opportunities to develop their word recognition and understanding, comprehension skills and, above all, their love for reading through our high quality Phonics, Shared Reading, Home Reading and English provision.
Implementation
We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds to teach phonics to all children and all children read decodable books at home at the correct phonics level whilst they are learning to read. Please see the following links for more information
Northcote Primary School Phonics Policy
Programme-Overview_Reception-and-Year-1-1 (1)
Support for parents at home – Some useful resources to help your child with phonics at home.
As part of the Little Wandle program all children read three times per week in a group (Focusing on decoding, prosody and comprehension)
Reading in KS2 is delivered through discrete daily Shared Reading lessons, where all children are given access to age-related texts. Children use a range of skills in these weekly sessions: they predict what the story is going to be about using clues in the title; as they read, they highlight unknown vocabulary and are given the chance to explore these words; they summarise in pairs what the story is about; create and answer questions based on the text and then complete tasks. Children are encouraged to make links between texts and use their new vocabulary in their writing.
Reading is also taught through a range of targeted interventions, including reading plus, and is woven throughout our whole curriculum.
Impact:
Our phonics scores show a maintaining trend in data and is beginning to have an impact on Year 2 reading outcomes. There is evidence of children trying to apply the phonics rules in their writing. Reading scores are also improving and remain above National Average at the end of KS2. Children and parents’ attitudes to reading are much more positive.
Parents say:
“Kids lessons are much more developed than when we were at school. It seems a fun way of learning too!”
“I enjoy being able to understand how the teaching is delivered to the children. It gives me a clearer understanding when helping them with their homework.”
“Helps you understand what your child does at school, especially being an older parent! Thank you for the experience you offer at your sessions.”
Online Reading Resources to support your children in school and at home:
Reading plus:
https://student.readingplus.com/seereader/api/sec/login
Please find a guide below, made by our Year 6 children, to support you accessing this.
Reading Plus Guide for Northcote Parents-Made by Northcote Children
All classes in the school have dedicated Reading Pods which are stocked with age, ability and interest-appropriate texts. Texts are reviewed and updated regularly in line with the pupils’ interests. Here, the children are able to read for pleasure in a comfortable setting.
The reading process:
Reading competitions:
One of our competitions was to design a ‘Shoe Box Story Scene’ based on our favourite books. Here are some of our entries:
Tweets by famous authors:
Maria Altes was so impressed with some of our designs that she tweeted us:
For World Book Week, we have all been learning lots about the stories by children’s author Tom McLaughlin. He has been so impressed with our work that he tweeted us:
Daniel Riding loved his visit in Key Stage 1:
Reading for pleasure:
Home Reading Help!
At Northcote, we want your home reading experience to be an enjoyable one. Take a look at our Home Reading resources below for hints, tips and resources to help you make the most of your reading time at home.
Home Reading Leaflet 2017-2018.pdf
Year 4 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Year 6 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Year 5 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Year 3 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Year 2 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Year 1 Home Reading Bookmark Twinkl.pdf
Read Liverpool
A fantastic, FREE website which allows you access thousands of e books at the touch of a button. All you need is a library card and internet access!
BBC School Radio
A fantastic resource full of animations and audio books of modern and classic stories including Carrie’s War and Shakespeare stories such as The Tempest
Myths and Legends
A brilliant resource which provides free access to Myths and Legends animations
Books for Keeps
An online Children’s book magazine
Love Reading 4 Kids
A fantastic website which gives you age and interest specific book recommendations. There is even a facility to download sample extracts!