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Reading

Intent

Learning to read is one of the most fundamental skills that your child will learn whilst at Cotham Gardens. We encourage all pupils to read widely across a broad genre of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to develop their knowledge of the world in which they live, to gain knowledge across the curriculum and to develop their comprehension skills. It is our intention that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently and have a deep-rooted appreciation and love of reading that they will carry throughout their lives and continue to allow them to be lifelong learners. 

Reading fluency is a key indicator for future success in further education, higher education and employment, improving life chances and lessening early life disadvantage. "The reading and writing of Standard English, alongside proficient language development, is the key to unlocking the rest of the academic curriculum. Pupils who struggle to read struggle in all subjects and the wonders of a knowledge-rich curriculum passes them by unread." (DfE, 2021) 

DfE research underpinning the Reading Framework found that the effective teaching of reading requires not just a systematic synthetic phonics programme but its consistent implementation in every class. We recognise the importance of talk, of accurate assessment, and of building a love of stories and reading.  

At Cotham Gardens, we also recognise the importance of teaching both general and subject-specific literacy and oracy. Vocabulary may be subject-specific and words sometimes have different meanings in different contexts and disciplines. Explicitly teaching vocabulary related to the topic pupils are learning about, supports understanding and provides the opportunity for pupils to practice language in a meaningful way at our school.  

Implementation

Reading is embedded across all areas of the curriculum. We recognise that teaching reading is a complex, incremental process in which every lesson is a tiny contribution to something vast”. (Such. C, 2021 The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading) 

Our teaching of reading across the school has two main strands: 

  • Word reading (decoding) 
  • Reading comprehension 

Children need to become experts in both strands in order to be successful readers.  

Word reading:  The youngest children are given the tools to enable them to decode words so that they learn to read systematically through the Little Wandle for Letters and Sounds phonics scheme. More information on our phonics programme can be found hereBy the end of year 1, children will have learned the basic tools of the English language and will move on to more advanced code in their phonics and spelling lessons. All teachers at Cotham Gardens are trained in teaching phonics and spelling. Developing reading fluency is a key element of word reading lessons, especially during the middle years of primary school.

Reading comprehension: Gaining meaning from the written word is closely correlated to children’s spoken language skills which is why at Cotham Gardens we have developed our curriculum to put quality texts and spoken language at the heart of our curriculum.  

Reading comprehension is taught from the first days in YR right through the school, in dedicated reading lessons and also as part of our wider English curriculum and cross curricular learning. Teaching is a mixture of explicit strategies as well as ensuring we offer a language rich, enabling environment.  

At Cotham Gardens Primary School, we use the CUSP Reading curriculum. CUSP Reading is deliberately designed to be ambitious and aspirational, ensuring that every child leaves our school as a competent, confident reader. Drawing on the latest research around explicit vocabulary instruction, reading fluency and key comprehension strategies, this curriculum is a synthesis of what we know works in helping children make outstanding progress in reading and a distillation into consistent, well-structured practice. CUSP Reading is designed to link closely with our writing curriculum, helping to reinforce key skills and concepts.

When you look at your child’s weekly timetable on Class Dojo, you will see that pupils receive a daily diet of reading teaching. This will be supplemented by regular opportunities to engage with shared reading experiences, promoting the joy of reading with the whole school community. The clear structure and principles ensure that teaching is progressive, challenging and engaging and the rich, diverse literature spine acts as both a mirror so that every child can see themselves in the core texts and as a mirror to engage pupils with experiences beyond their own field of reference.

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident word readers before the end of KS1. Alongside this they will have been exposed to a wide range of teaching and texts to equip them with wider reading skills such as comprehension, inference, and prediction to ensure that they are inspired to continue their reading journey through KS2.  

As a Year 6 reader, transitioning into secondary school, Cotham Gardens children will be fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning and all areas of the curriculum. 

We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.

 

The books 

One of the wonderful things about CUSP Reading is the carefully curated range of high quality texts that the children will get to know. Below is a link to each Year Group’s ‘Reading Spine’- the books that the curriculum covers over the course of the year.

cusp english long term sequence 2024 25 single age sequence cusp.pdf

 

A note on dyslexia 

Some children struggle more than others with word reading. Some of these children will go on to be formally diagnosed as ‘dyslexic’. We are not able to diagnose dyslexia in school.  

We recognise that the English language is particularly tricky to decode and gives struggling children unique challenges which require a great deal of persistence from the child, and skilful teaching from the adult. Dyslexic children need the same high quality phonics teaching, reading practise and fluency activities as all other children, with further support where required. We aim to provide this at Cotham gardens, no matter whether a child has a diagnosis or not.