READING

Reading Intent

At Cranbrook, we want our children to build a life-long love for reading by exploring their curiosity through memorable learning experiences. Reading at Cranbrook widens pupils’ horizons, stimulates their imagination and develops their understanding of the world. We begin the process of learning to read in the Early Years Foundation Stage, where we believe that the systematic teaching of phonics is the fastest and most effective way of enabling young children to start reading. We aim to expose our children to an ever widening range of culturally diverse, classic and modern texts to develop critical thinking skills and resilience in learning. Research shows that reading ability is one of the most important indicators of success in later life. We enable our children to become confident and articulate communicators by enriching their vocabulary using a range of high quality texts. We equip our children with the phonic skills to decode words and by the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2), our pupils leave our school as independent readers with a passion for reading, well prepared to tackle the next stage of their educational journey. We aspire for our children to appreciate the power of reading and we have a strong focus on this within our school.

Reading Scheme

At Cranbrook we develop phonics and early reading skills using TWINKL Phonics. Teachers assess phonics using rigorous assessments to ensure children are developing their segmenting, blending, and decoding skills. All 1-1 reading books across the school from EYFS-Year 6 are closely matched to our phonics scheme using Collins BigCat books and Rhino Readers. These books will be selected to match the pupils current phonics level in EYFS and KS1 and their reading level in KS2. We also use Dandelion Launchers books for some of our beginner and reluctant readers which are also matched closely to our phonics scheme. These books have been selected as they build a child’s self-esteem and encourage confidence in independent reading. These books provide practice whilst offering different stories. Each unit introduces new letters/sounds while revising previously taught phonic letters/sounds and high-frequency or sight words. Across the school we promote and encourage children to select an additional reading for pleasure text from the classroom library.

Reading for Pleasure

We encourage the love of reading through summer reading challenges, Readalicious high quality texts lists, world book days, teachers reading aloud, dear time, classic texts, shared reading, buddy reading and planning opportunities from a variety of quality literature including texts from diverse authors. We develop our school drivers and foster empathy, determination, aspirations and confident communicators through our choices of text and protagonists.  Displays around our school show that we are a reading community – with parent, pupil and teacher timelines demonstrating how reading has changed and shaped our lives.  Children are encouraged to understand and believe;

‘The more your read, the more you know, 
The more you know, the more you grow. 
The smarter you grow, the stronger your voice, 
When speaking your mind or making your choice. 
We believe Readers are Future Leaders!'