Christ Church CE Primary School

 Reading 

Intent

Reading 📖✨

At Christ Church CE Primary School, we believe that a quality reading curriculum should ignite and cultivate a child’s love of books, vocabulary and discussion, creating an ambitious and firm foundation of knowledge and skills. We aspire to widen our children’s horizons through developing their ability to read effectively, thoughtfully and confidently, building the vital oracy and comprehension skills required to interpret the written word around them.

Our Literary Heritage & Reading Spine 📚🪟

We aim to inspire a deep love of our rich and varied literary heritage, fostering a lifelong habit of, and passion for, reading widely, often and for enjoyment. At the heart of this is our carefully-chosen, high-quality curriculum reading spine, which ensures reading is central to learning across all subject areas and acts as a window, mirror and door to the wider world. We recognise the importance of creating a rigorous, systematic approach to early reading and phonics, ensuring every child becomes a fluent reader who can access the full breadth of the curriculum.

Sequenced, Cumulative and Progressive 📈🎯

Our curriculum ensures children develop a secure, cumulative knowledge-base through text, following a carefully sequenced and progressive pathway as they advance through the primary phases. This secure basis in reading is crucial to a high-quality education, giving our children the tools they need to know more, remember more and succeed fully both across the curriculum and as local, national and global citizens who embody our core values.

Inclusive Access for Every Child 🤝🏆

At Christ Church CE Primary, our reading curriculum is inclusive and accessible to all. We adapt our learning to maximise the development of every child’s potential, ensuring all pupils, including those with SEND and those who are disadvantaged, experience success, build reading resilience and have the right to enjoy the varied and rich literature available to them.

Implementation

At Christ Church Primary School, we believe reading to be at the heart of everything we do, and teach it through a systematic and sequenced approach.

Early Reading & Phonics 🧩🗣️

At Christ Church CE Primary School, children learn to decode through Read Write Inc. – a validated and highly accredited programme of systematic synthetic phonics. Through these carefully sequenced lessons, children learn how to read the graphemes that represent sounds. They learn to blend these sounds into words, gradually building to blending in their heads to achieve rapid automaticity.

To ensure complete success, children read books that are exactly matched to their phonics knowledge. These books are then sent home for parents and carers to read with their children, fostering a strong home-school partnership. Children are grouped dynamically based on their specific sound knowledge and complete the programme once they attain full automaticity and fluency.

Targeted Interventions & Keeping Up 🎯🛡️

We ensure high-quality, inclusive access for all learners by ensuring no child is left behind:

  • Key Stage 1 Support: Children struggling to keep up with the pace of the programme are tutored 1:1 using targeted, rapid interventions to ensure they keep up rather than catch up.

  • Key Stage 2 Fresh Start: Children in Key Stage 2 whose grapheme-phoneme knowledge contains significant gaps, or who are not sufficiently fluent, attend either tailored Read Write Inc. sessions or a separate intervention programme called Fresh Start. Fresh Start follows the exact same evidence-informed pedagogy and routines as Read Write Inc. but features age-appropriate texts carefully adapted and aimed at older readers.

 For more information about our phonics provision, please click here.

Guided Reading - Reception and KS1📖👥

In Reception and Key Stage 1, guided reading is delivered daily in small groups, ensuring that the texts chosen are closely matched to the children's specific phonic knowledge. A group spends one or two sessions focusing intently on a single fiction or non-fiction text.

These small-group sessions are purposefully designed to build children’s reading fluency, expression and prosody. Alongside this, children are explicitly taught specific reading skills, such as retrieval and inference, using effective scaffolding and visuals. They provide a structured, supportive environment where children can define new vocabulary and use consistent oracy practices to discuss their answers verbally, allowing all learners to access the text and experience success.

Ready, Steady, Read Together 📚🚀

Our shared reading curriculum is built around a carefully sequenced range of high-quality, age-appropriate texts using Literacy Counts’ Ready Steady Read Together units of learning. Once children complete the Read Write Inc. phonics programme, they transition onto these units for shared reading. This resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that incorporate metacognitive strategies, showcase diverse literature from a range of exceptional authors and ensure all pupils from Year 2 to Year 6, regardless of need, ability or background, have the opportunity to meet and exceed National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension.

Ready, Steady, Read Together contains a rich mixture of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. These carefully-selected texts contain ambitious vocabulary and form an essential part of our curriculum reading spine to inspire and engage children. The texts represent a combination of new and exciting books by diverse modern authors, alongside classic novels and poems from our rich literary history, aiming to inspire children and their families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information.

The Lesson Sequence 🔄🏫

To ensure high-quality, evidence-informed teaching, each Ready, Steady, Read Together lesson follows a rigorous four-part sequence:

  • Read 🗣️ The teacher reads to the children, explicitly modelling appropriate expression, pace, intonation and prosody. This showcases how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support deep comprehension.

  • Model 🧠 Children are explicitly taught key reading skills, including retrieval, inference, prediction and vocabulary analysis. Each session allows for rich discussion and deliberate exposure to new and ambitious vocabulary. Teachers use effective scaffolding, visuals and careful adaptations to make these concepts accessible.

  • Practise 🤝 Children work collaboratively using consistent oracy practices, regular opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and the exploration of language. These approaches deepen comprehension while strengthening vital communication skills.

  • Apply 📝 Children independently apply their learning to complete a task or answer questions based on the text, allowing them to experience success at their own level.

Friday Speaking Spotlight 🎭🗣️

On Fridays, the lesson shifts its focus to a dedicated 'Speaking Spotlight' session. These sessions involve specific, high-impact oracy activities designed to deepen comprehension through dramatic exploration and debate. 

Inclusive Access for All Learners 🤝🏆

Crucially, our shared reading curriculum ensures that every child, regardless of their decoding ability, can access ambitious texts, engage meaningfully with literature and develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and learning. Teachers adapt lessons, utilising visuals and practical resources so that all learners, including those with SEND and those who are disadvantaged, experience success and build reading resilience.

Cross-Curricular Links & Background Knowledge 🌍🧠

Ready, Steady, Read Together intentionally links with History, Geography and Science units throughout the year. This purposeful design helps build up children’s background knowledge and vocabulary across a range of topics, acting as a window, mirror and door by helping children make meaningful links across all of their learning.

Accelerated Reader 🚀📖

While learning to read through Read Write Inc., children access books exactly matched to their sounds both at home and in school. They also take home beautiful picture books for parents to share, nurturing a love of reading and exposing them to a rich variety of vocabulary.

Transitioning to Accelerated Reader 🎯📈

Once children complete the Read Write Inc. programme with fluency and accuracy, they transition onto Accelerated Reader books. This programme features an adaptive assessment which gauges each child's reading age. This generates a specific range of numerically-labelled books that children access confidently, ensuring effective scaffolding. Children retake the test periodically, choosing increasingly complex texts as their reading age increases to ensure sequenced progression.

Reading for Pleasure & Quizzing 📚💻

These texts are read both at home and in school. Children choose from a wide variety of fiction genres alongside an attractive, up-to-date range of non-fiction books. Upon completing a book, children take electronic Accelerated Reader quizzes, providing instant formative assessment to test their understanding and celebrate their success.

Celebration of Reading at Christ Church🎉📚

Reading permeates the entire curriculum at Christ Church Primary School, and as such is something we celebrate. We mark National Poetry Day and World Book Day each year, encouraging children to share and recommend books to one another in their classrooms to build a vibrant reading culture.

Teachers actively promote and celebrate children completing their reading records and commenting on their books, rewarding their efforts with house points and in-class treats.

Promotion of Reading for Pleasure & Diverse Texts 🕵️‍♂️✨

  • The Mystery Book: Each class teacher chooses a child weekly to take home our ‘Mystery Book’, the identity of which is kept top secret from the chosen child’s classmates!

  • 'See yourself in a Book': Each child chose a book in which they can ‘see’ themselves—whether based on their interests, hobbies, cultural backgrounds or religion. These books enhance our reading spine, ensuring our curriculum acts as a mirror for every child.

Enriched Reading Experiences & Community 🏛️🎄

  • Library & Author Visits: Children enjoy regular visits to Birkenhead Library to borrow books, engage in workshops and meet inspiring authors and poets, widening their horizons and bringing literature to life.

  • The 'Magic of Reading' Christmas Event: We warmly welcome our community into school for special events, such as our festive Christmas reading session, where parents and carers join their children to share and enjoy stories together.

Reading Across the Curriculum 🌍📖

At Christ Church CE Primary School, reading is deeply embedded throughout our broad and rich curriculum. Children read for a variety of purposes, such as research and information-gathering across History, Geography, Science and beyond, ensuring that literacy skills underpin all academic achievement.

Text-Linked Topics & Vocabulary 🧠📚

To support this integrated approach, three of the six Steps to Read units each year link directly to topics taught in other subject areas. This purposeful design provides children with vital background information, develops their oracy and secures the ambitious vocabulary knowledge needed to access the wider curriculum.

Subject Reading Spines 📑✨

In addition, we have created a dedicated reading spine for each subject and have invested heavily in beautiful, high-quality books across all curriculum areas. These texts act as a window, mirror and door, ensuring that every child has access to rich literature that deepens their understanding of the world and enhances their learning journey.

 Spirituality: Windows, Mirrors and Doors ✨🌍

Believing Christ to be in all of us, we embrace reading as a spiritual act that allows children to reflect upon themselves, connect with others and wonder at the wider world. We intentionally select a diverse, high-quality curriculum reading spine that serves as:

  • Windows 🪟: Allowing children to look out into unfamiliar worlds, gaining deep insights into different cultures, religions and historical perspectives while developing profound empathy for the experiences of others.

  • Mirrors 🪞: Providing texts where children see their own unique identities, hobbies, faiths and backgrounds reflected, validating their personal worth and fostering a secure sense of belonging within our school community.

  • Doors 🚪: Giving children the language, ideas and inspiration to step through into new possibilities, using the knowledge gained from books to challenge injustice, think critically and flourish as compassionate global citizens.

This spiritual dimension encourages children to read not just for academic success, but to nurture their inner lives, spark their imagination and explore core human values through the power of the written word.

 

Impact

Reading Impact 🎯🏆

Our approach to the teaching of reading results in engaging, high-quality lessons that provide children with the essential reading skills and knowledge required for life as local, national and global citizens. By creating a firm foundation for individual growth, all children make good progress academically from their starting points, leaving our school fully prepared for the next stage of their education.

Robust Assessment & Progress Tracking 📈📝

We use a rigorous, evidence-informed approach to monitor and evaluate the impact of our reading curriculum:

  • Termly Assessments: Staff use out assessment tracking platform on a termly basis to record data, alongside termly NFER and STAR reading tests to track comprehension and reading ages.

  • Annual Attainment: At the end of the academic year, this cumulative data determines each pupil's final attainment level.

  • Ready Steady Read Together Books: In Years 2 to 6, children complete work in dedicated Ready Steady Read Together books, providing a clear, sequential record of their progress and skills development.

  • Pupil Voice: Regular pupil voice interviews are conducted throughout the year to gauge children's enthusiasm for reading, their oracy skills and their ability to relate their reading to their own lives.

End of Key Stage 2 Expectations 🎓✨

By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils at Christ Church CE Primary School:

  •  Make strong academic progress relative to their starting points, confidently using their literacy skills to transition successfully into secondary education.

  • Demonstrate a deep love of reading and read fluently both for pleasure and for information.

  •  Draw upon a wide, sophisticated vocabulary developed through regular exposure to our high-quality curriculum reading spine.

  •  Make accurate inferences, predictions and connections across texts, linking new reading to prior knowledge.

  • Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of poetry in its many varied forms.

Additional Information and Resources

 Please click on the links below to find out more about our Reading curriculum:

National Curriculum Programme of Study: English

Reading Overview

Reading and Development Matters

 

 

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