The Pioneer reading curriculum has been carefully selected and designed using evidence-informed approaches to ensure that every pupil develops the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to become a successful reader. It is built upon three key principles: the explicit teaching of vocabulary, the development of fluent and expressive reading, and regular opportunities for pupils to think deeply about the texts they encounter.
The curriculum is planned progressively to meet the expectations of the National Curriculum within mixed-age group classes, ensuring that knowledge and reading skills are revisited and developed systematically from year to year. There is a two-year rolling curriculum for Reading for each class (Years 3 – 6), as well as a comprehensive curriculum for Year 2 children. Each individual unit in all year groups has the opportunity for stretch and challenge.
Within this Reading curriculum, children experience a rich and diverse range of high-quality literature throughout their primary education, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry from a variety of authors, cultures and historical periods. Alongside this breadth, pupils study a number of complete, high-quality texts in depth, allowing them to develop sustained understanding and appreciation of literature and inspiring children to continually read for pleasure.
Consistent lesson structures provide regular opportunities to practise and refine reading skills, while the level of challenge increases progressively as pupils move through the school. Teaching draws on established research into effective reading instruction, ensuring that all pupils receive a broad, ambitious and inclusive reading curriculum that supports both academic success and a lifelong enjoyment of reading. The format of the Reading lessons are the same every day, in every class, which brings consistency and clarity for all children.
Reading lessons develop pupils’ understanding through a range of interconnected reading domains:
- Explicit vocabulary teaching
- Retrieval
- Summarising
- Making meaning through inference and interpretation
- Thematic and structural understanding
- Authorial intent
- Comparison and connection
- Reading behaviours, including fluency, stamina and reading strategies
- Personal response, supported by evidence from the text
Progression
- Pupils start reading books that match their phonic phases in Reception, these books move from Phase 2 to Phase 5 and link directly with the daily phonics teaching. Children take home a weekly phonics book and a supplementary book that matches the phonic sounds they are working on.
- When children are confident with all phase 5 sounds and words they move onto coloured reading band books. These are Purple, White, Gold and Lime books. Children reading these books are consolidating their fluency and reading skills. Children can take home multiple books for the week.
- When children are confident with these reading skills they move into our ‘free reader’ section. These are progressive longer/chapter like books and are grouped into ‘Gems’ moving from Pearl all the way to Ruby. Children can choose any book in the gem band they are in and read these books until they have finished.
Reading Strategies
When reading children are developing their understanding of what has been read, they are using and embedding their knowledge of punctuation.
Through inference and discussions children will be furthering their understanding of settings, characters and events.
When children are fluent readers we move to VIPERS.
We Love Reading!
It is our aim to ensure that each pupil is able to develop as an effective reader by:- Becoming confident, independent readers who understand that books of all kinds are a source of pleasure, information and new insights.
- Feeling at home in the world of books and literature as attentive listeners and reflective readers.
- Reading and responding to a wide variety of stories, novels, poems, plays, nonfiction and media texts.
- Achieve a reading ability at least comparable with their chronological age.
- Achieving fluency, accuracy and understanding with their reading.
- Enjoy, and have experience of, a wide variety of texts, including those of their own and other cultures.
