At Shakespeare Primary School we have a relentless focus and prioritise reading. This ensures that younger children and those at the early stages of reading gain the phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read, and the skills to communicate, gives them the foundations for future learning.

Phonics and Reading Lessons

Reading is a core part of our daily timetable at Shakespeare.  Every child attends their reading lesson at 9am daily.  Pupils in the Early Years and Key Stage 1 begin their day with Read, Write Inc. phonics lessons.  At Shakespeare School we have a  rigorous and sequential approach to the reading curriculum which develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading. At all stages, reading attainment is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. All pupils, who are early readers, access lessons that specifically target their areas of need through the use of RWInc and they are re-grouped every six weeks in order to provide the right balance of support and challenge.  All of our KS2 early readers take part in daily RWInc lessons with their KS peers. If additional interventions are required for any child they will partake in 1-1 Fast Track Tutoring. This ensures all children are able to succeed and make rapid progress and achieve the high ambitions of the curriculum.  

Whole class reading

As children compete the phonics program they begin daily whole class reading sessions where they read widely through our class Super 6 books which are appropriate to their age. This enables all pupils to develop a strong understanding of different books, genres and text types whilst continually improving their reading fluency.

All whole-class reading lessons are planned so that a variety of genres are taught and re-visited on two-week cycles.  This ensures that all pupils become familiar will specific text structures, language, authorial voice and rich vocabulary.  Every lesson develops pupils' understanding of specific reading skills: retrieval, inference, clarification, summarising, prediction and questioning through modelling, practise and application.  

Sharing books

Reading is our priority and we want all children to have a love for reading.  We therefore make sure that we read to our children every day - no matter where they are in the school.  The stories and non-fictions books have been carefully selected and we hope that by listening to books being read, children will then be inspired to select from a wide range of books when reading independently.