“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
At Florence Melly we are readers! We want our children to develop a genuine love of reading. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be librarians, publicists, bloggers and journalists. Our reading curriculum has been carefully crafted and each cohort explores a suite of core texts that form the depth study for the academic year. These texts have been chosen by leaders to ensure that a breadth of experiences, authors, texts and themes are explored. In addition to these texts, there are core poems that each year group will study in detail.
English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others, and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised. National Curriculum (2013)
Bringing Reading Alive at Florence Melly!
We often use the vibrancy of Liverpool as a vehicle to enrich pupils’ time in our school with memorable and unforgettable experiences, trips, lessons and clubs. Here are just a few examples of how we have brought our writing curriculum alive this year:
- Pupils have been enjoying a new initiative, designed to promote reading at home and reading for pleasure. Our ‘Strive for 5’ initiative encourages our pupils to read at least 5 times a week and, if they do, every Friday they are entered into a draw whereby one lucky winner has the opportunity to take home our beautiful reading boxes that are filed with a collection of new stories, a story time sloth, a blanket to snuggle up to and other lovely treats.
- On World Book Day, pupils visited Anfield where they met Ben Lyttleton, author of ‘The Football School’! The children enjoyed a variety of activities including a manga inspired creative writing workshop. They wrapped up the event by going home with a selection of books kindly donated by the @Literacy_Trust, with winning pupils receiving a book signed by @BenLyt himself!
Our Reading Policy
Please take a few minutes to read through our reading policy, created by our Reading Lead, Mrs O’Keefe. If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of this policy or our approach to reading, please get in touch: c.okeefe@fmp.liverpool.sch.uk.
Our Reading Curriculum Rationale
Intent
We believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as members of society. Our children will leave the school in Year 6 with the ability to access learning throughout their life. They will be able to read, write, express themselves through confident speech and understand the structure of language. In addition to these basic skills that will equip the children for life, we endeavour to build a love for literature, a love of stories and inspire our children to read and write for enjoyment. It is our aim to develop a desire in our children to pick up a book, to persevere and find that satisfaction in completing a novel.
We believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We use high-quality texts as the beating heart of everything we do, we develop a genuine love of reading so that our children read widely and often for information and pleasure. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning. We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge base in literacy, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. Within our school, English is not only a daily discrete lesson; it is the cornerstone of the entire curriculum. It is embedded within all our lessons and we strive for a high level of English for all.
Implementation
We understand that reading is the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum and we are passionate about ensuring every child, no matter what their circumstance or starting point, learns to read as quickly as possible.
Through the delivery of our reading curriculum, we strive to ensure a consistent and robust approach to the teaching and learning of early reading and phonics in EYFS and KS1. We use Read Write Inc. to deliver daily sessions which are grouped by the phonic knowledge needs of the children and assessed every half term to ensure pupils are always challenged at the appropriate level. We use phonics screening data to monitor pupils and ensure that in KS2, we provide additional support for those that are still not yet confident in applying their phonics skills.
Explicit teaching of high-quality vocabulary is prioritised in all curriculum subjects. We continue to teach high order reading skills through whole class, teacher led sessions with CUSP as the vehicle for this.
We provide a text-rich environment in order to encourage a positive culture of reading throughout all classes and in all areas of our building to promote pupils’ enjoyment of reading. Through high-quality teaching and learning experiences, we will develop children’s skills and confidence. We celebrate reading through different events over the academic year including World Book Day, themed drop-down days, library visits, book clubs, author and poet visits and workshops, and sessions to promote parent/carer engagement.
Impact
We believe that reading is key to all learning so we seek to ensure the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter a wide and varied magical world that reading opens to them and, as they develop their own interest in books, we endeavour to foster a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.
We are committed to ensuring that when our children leave us at the end of Year 6, they are able to read with accuracy, speed, confidence, fluency and understanding, so that they are ready to access the next stage of their education.
As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy knowledge and skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.
Reading Subject Characteristics
Reading subject specific characteristics, which we expect the children to demonstrate, have been developed and shared with all stakeholders. These characteristics underpin all work in reading and form a focal point for display areas and provide a common subject specific vocabulary for staff and pupils.
At Florence Melly, we are Readers. We have…
- Excellent phonic knowledge and skills.
- Fluency and accuracy in reading across a wide range of contexts throughout the curriculum.
- Knowledge of an extensive and rich vocabulary.
- An excellent comprehension of texts.
- The motivation to read for both study and for pleasure.
- Extensive knowledge through having read a rich and varied range of texts.
Key Reading Documentation
Please use the links below to access our key documentation.
Reading Vocabulary Progression
Our Literature Spine – please use the following link to access our literature spine. These are the books that we use as a core text for activities in our English reading and writing lessons. In EYFS, all curriculum areas are underpinned by a high-quality text; these are the books that we use for our structured story time and drawing club sessions.
Celebrating Reading on Social Media
Recent Reading Initiatives at Florence Melly
At Florence Melly, we implement many initiatives to promote both reading development and reading for pleasure. This year, these have included:
- Designing and setting up our own school library, enhancing class reading corners, creating pop up book displays and ensuring that books can be found in as many areas as possible!
- Including book recommendations for children on our newsletters; we have even started to include some specifically for parents and carers too.
- Purchasing many new books, across a wide range of text types and genres and arranging surprise deliveries which are opened by our pupils.
- Revamping our KS2 home reading scheme, investing over £10,000 in this area this year!
- Engaging in Lancashire Libraries’ Fantastic Book Awards by successfully running a KS2 Book Club for avid readers.
- Hosting a wide range of book themed competitions – with all prizes linked to books/reading of course!
- Welcoming published authors and poets into school to share their personal stories with our pupils.
- Celebrating our children’s achievements by visits to our very own Book Vending Machine!
- Whole-heartedly embracing celebrations such as World Book Day.
- Arranging many events in school to promote parental engagement with reading.
- The introduction of ‘Strive for Five’ boxes to promote reading for pleasure at home for our families.
