Reading at Burton

“Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and we will change everything. And I mean, everything.”

Jean Winterson.

At Burton Primary School, Reading is at the heart of our curriculum as it unlocks an unlimited potential in all of us. Our aim is for every child to leave Burton a fluent and enthusiastic life-long reader.

Throughout their primary journey with us, the children are taught how to read, understand and enjoy a broad range of high quality texts every day. Across EYFS and both Key Stages, we carefully select a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts designed to develop children’s cultural and social awareness as well as fostering a love of reading and enriching our curriculum.

Right from their very first day in Reception at Burton, children begin learning to read!  We successfully use the Read Write Inc (RWI) scheme in Early Years Foundation and throughout Key Stage 1 and for those children in Key Stage 2 for whom additional support is needed. RWI develops reading skills through robust and daily teaching, enabling the introduction and consolidation of phonics, the development of early reading skills and basic comprehension. Children are then able to read with increased speed and fluency and can access the wider curriculum. The books the children are provided with match and support their phonics development and ability.

When the children enter Key Stage Two, and once fluency is in place, we begin to focus more explicitly on the core reading skills (comprehension, retrieval, inference, prediction, authorial intent, explanation, summarising and sequencing) and look for links within and across themes and genres. Texts are chosen to be engaging and thought provoking, and linked by themes on a half termly basis. This enables our learners to make comparisons across them and provide them with a broad range of reading experiences. Reading skills are taught as a whole class session, 3 times a week, with at least one of the skills being a focus. Teachers will model that skill as well as enable plenty of discussion opportunities so that speaking and listening skills can be developed too.

Reading is integral to every class across the school and our purpose for promoting reading for enjoyment is our priority. Every class has a daily allocated 'class read' slot and these texts will have been carefully chosen to accompany the themes of topics that the children are studying. In addition to our beautiful whole school 'Book Nook', every class across the school has its own smaller book nook which children are encouraged to ‘borrow from’ to read for pleasure.  Children regularly visit our continuously updated library to refresh their own book corners. In EYFS children are invited to take a ‘story sack’ home every week to share a book at home with related activities.  In Key Stage 2, children have further opportunities to enjoy reading in the school day: children take part in DEAR time (Drop Everything And Read) across the week continuing our ethos of ‘reading for pleasure’ as children can choose to read whatever they are interested in. 

In addition to reading in school, we actively encourage parents to embrace reading at home. Our half termly reading challenges are very popular with a range of creative and engaging activities to get the whole family involved. We also celebrate reading throughout the year with reading weeks, workshops and Books and Bedtime.