“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!
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.
