Years 3 & 4 curriculum

OUR READING CURRICULUM INTENT

We want all children to have the understanding, that reading is something for everyone not just the few: they will be taught to fluently decode as well as comprehend.  All children in our school will develop their self-concept as readers and develop a clear picture of their personal “reading identity”. We want all children to derive pleasure from reading, be it immersion in the escapism of fiction or acquiring new knowledge and critical thinking skills through non-fiction.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. ― Dr. Seuss,  

Reading

The essential aim of our reading curriculum is to instil a love of reading that will stay with the children throughout their lives. We know that children who are fluent, confident readers will be more able to access the whole curriculum and will achieve better outcomes in all areas of the curriculum. 

In school children will have regular opportunities to read for pleasure and to an audience.  They will be encouraged to read to celebrate and extend their learning.

Through a planned programme of teaching reading will progress from decoding, to fluency, to comprehension, through one to one reading, whole class reading and modelled/ shared reading.

Our goal is to teach the children the skills to progress from reading scheme books to being able to select their own books from a varied range of genres that suit their ability. 

A home-school reading partnership is fostered through the school, whereby children are encouraged to bring books home to share with their families.  As well as promoting reading, this gives the school and parents an opportunity to regularly communicate about children’s reading.

LKS2

• We have a daily reading session, developing reading stamina across a range of text types. Including fluency sessions, comprehension sessions, sharing a range of class texts and sustained individualized reading.
• Children are exposed to non-fiction books linked to our topics. This exposure to a range of texts will expand their reading repertoire and encourage a life-long love of reading. Many of our English units are linked to a range of multimodal texts.
• We continue to develop inference skills by using our reading journals to support learning both at home and at school.
• We run a reading buddy systems with KS1, sharing books on a weekly basis.
• We include a 'Word of the Day' within our daily spelling session. This introduces new vocabulary to the children, which we encourage them to include in their writing. 
• Throughout the year, we visit the local library, as well as regular visits to our in-school library. Here they can explore different texts and have the opportunity to borrow books. 
• Reading occurs in all curriculum areas.
• Daily spelling lesson includes work on phonics and letter patterns.
• Children requiring additional support with independent reading strategies have access to intervention programmes.

Reading in the classroom

• We use a range of high quality texts as a vehicle for our English lessons. All children have the opportunity to listen to stories both read and told to them.
• When delivering whole class reading text, we pre-teach vocabulary to ensure understanding.
• Fluency reading techniques are used by both the teacher and children. We discuss the plot, characters, etc. and the focus for the lesson will be a particular skill such as prediction, retrieval or inference.
• When answering comprehension questions children are taught reading skills such as skimming and scanning. A follow-up task is given so children can reflect on what they have read and provides an opportunity for the teacher to observe/assess the individual understanding of a piece.
• We use poetry journals to build up a repertoire of well-loved rhymes, songs and poems. This is an important part of early literacy development and a source of great joy.
• We encourage the children to read at home and expect them to read to parents/carers at least 4 times per week. Children have the opportunity to change their home/school reading book every day. Parents are encouraged to communicate via a reading diary.

BREADTH OF STUDY AND PROGRESSION IN READING

We carefully plan the different text types we are going to study in our English and Reading lessons, to ensure full coverage of the curriculum, alongside the children's interests and our topics.

OUR YEAR GROUP READING LISTS

Each age phase has drawn up a list of carefully selected texts, that they will be using across each curriculum cycle as a focus for their teaching and class readers.

These are not the only texts read: other books are also enjoyed throughout the year (for example when reading whole class stories for pleasure, in whole school events and competitions, Whole Class reading lesson extracts)

The books are chosen through taking in to account:

• Topic themes and English objective coverage
• Age range, ability, varied genres and interests of the classes
• Tackling the “Plagues of Reading”, which help children engage with high level texts, which present challenges to the reader

Please see below the lists for each age phase - (which are regularly reviewed by teaching teams). These do change at times, to reflect curriculum modifications.

At St. Peter’s we strive to deliver the 2014 National Curriculum through an inspiring and creative approach. We believe that all children need access to good role models of spoken English and therefore we expect all adults to use correct Standard English in their daily spoken and verbal interactions. Grammar, Handwriting, Punctuation and Spelling are integral to every subject across the curriculum so we focus on it continuously.

Resources

Every classroom has relevant supportive resources, that the children can use to support their understanding such as grammatical terminology poster, phonics mats, topic spelling banks etc. Teachers in KS2 and at the end of Year 2, use the No Nonsense Spelling Scheme to support their lesson delivery. Children in KS2 have a spelling journal to record their exploration and practising of rules and patterns, which also contains a “Have a go sheet”. This encourages children to experiment independently with tricky spellings and gain scaffolded feedback to find the correct spelling.  Classes also have dictionaries and iPads for children’s use. Children in UKS2 also use a GCP Grammar Practice book as part of their homework routine at various points during the year, to reinforce their understanding of grammatical concepts and apply the knowledge. Children in LKS2 may also use Fluent in Five style lesson starters, to reinforce and apply conceptual knowledge.

Handwriting

Handwriting is taught separately to phonics. The focus is initially on the correct formation of individual letters but in accordance with our Little Wandle phonics scheme, handwriting is taught discretely. In LKS2 every Friday, children are directly taught handwriting patterns linked to the spelling rule of the week to give focused practice and as children progress to UKS2, they are given opportunities to practise all the handwriting joins through final presentation drafts and focused practice linked to spelling rule practice. Teachers use the Nelson scheme as a basis for the way in which we teach cursive handwriting and we form letters.

Modelling

Children are encouraged to use correct terminology from Reception to Year 6 and all adults remind children and reiterate the correct grammatical way to pronounce or write. When writing, we model correct spellings, Standard English grammatical structures and syntax. Cursive handwriting is used in modelling at an appropriate point in development in Year 2 onwards.

Teaching and Assessment

Children are tested on GAPS in KS1 (Year 2) and KS2 (Year 6). In KS1 GAPS is taught within the English curriculum with explicit links to the GAPS NC objectives. GAPS may be taught discretely or within the English lesson. Importance is put on the embedding of the GAPS teaching in to their writing and the application of skills so we develop our pupils as good writers with support on passing the SATs later in the year.