Mrs Fryer is our Reading Lead.

“We read to have our hearts touched.”

Tim Rasinski

At Southmead , as well as developing and embedding reading skills, we develop a love of reading for pleasure and appreciate it as a way of opening the door to life long learning and enjoyment. We believe that reading, writing, speaking and listening as fundamental life skills, enable children to communicate effectively and ready themselves for independent life in the wider world. Reading is a method to satisfy curiosity about the world around us.

Intent for Improving skill at reading

We are determined that:

• Every child will learn to read, regardless of background, needs or abilities.
• All pupils, including those who find reading challenging, make sufficient progress to meet or exceed age related expectations.
• Children are able to develop vocabulary, language comprehension and love of reading through stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction shared across the curriculum.
• Children are familiar with, and enjoy listening to a wide range of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction.
• Southmead’s phonics programme (Early Letters and Sounds) matches or exceeds expectations of the National Curriculum and the Early Learning Goals.
• Staff at Southmead are clear on expectations of pupils phonics progress from reception to Year 2.
• The sequence of reading books in EYFS and KS1 shows cumulative progression in phonics knowledge that is matched closely to the school's phonics program.
• Teachers will give pupils sufficient practice in reading and re-reading books that match the grapheme-phoneme correspondences they know both in school and at home.
• Reading, including the teaching of systematic, synthetic phonics is taught from  the very beginning of EYFS.
• Ongoing assessment of pupils’ reading and phonic progress is sufficiently frequent and detailed to identify any pupil struggling to "keep up" and maintain the pace. If pupils do fall behind, targeted intervention and support is given.
• Staff at Southmead have developed  sufficient expertise in the teaching of reading and phonics.

Intent for developing children’s love of reading

We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading and wider curriculum.

We aim that:

• Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review books objectively.
• Children develop a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.
• Children build preferences in reading and choose to read a variety of texts including non-fiction.
• Children recognise individual authors and styles of writing they enjoy.
• Children engage in book discussions alongside both adults and peers.
• Children are given the opportunity to share and recommend books.

Please see the Reading At Southmead document below for how the teaching of reading is implemented throughout the school.

We use the following strategies for implementation:

• Well chosen and engaging curriculum texts
• Sharing books in assemblies
• Carefully selected texts for class story time, some of which are from the Pie Corbett Reading Spine for each year group
• Opportunity for children practice own reading independently as well a in guided groups and whole class situations
• Involvement in World Book Day activities to share a love of books
• When possible, Year 2 visits to local library
• Class book corners to create a positive reading environment
• Library stock and classroom books refreshed regularly to maintain high quality and interesting texts.
• Lunch Time reading club
• Participation in the Rotary Debating competition
• Teachers model reading for fluency and understanding
• Rich language highlighted and emphasised across the curriculum
• Reading buddies  to enable paired reading across year groups
• Book shares across year groups 
• Use of Library van to exchange and replenish classroom book stock
• Use of Schools Library topic boxes each term to select high quality texts to support teaching and enjoyment.
• Individual reading programmes to support poorest readers including Reading Eggs, Nessy and literacy Planet
• Specialised Reading Recover Teachers in each Key Stage to support the progress of most vulnerable pupils identified through careful screening.

As a result we are fostering  a community of enthusiastic readers who are able to use reading strategies across the curriculum to further their learning and ready them for life beyond Southmead. Children love talking about books and their reading, sharing ideas and favourites.