Reading
'Reading to the mind is like exercise to the body.'
Proverb
At Chandos, we aim for all children to leave our school with a love of reading. Every child, regardless of gender, race or ability will have equal access to the Reading Curriculum at all times. We aim to provide for all children so that they can achieve their best according to their individual needs, whether they need additional support or more challenge.
At Chandos, we encourage children to use metacognition strategies as they read to really think about what is happening in the text and make sure that they understand the events. In turn, this helps the children to develop their comprehension skills more effectively.
See the six strategies below along with a video explaining what metacognition is.
use background knoweldge
use inference
predict and ask questions
notice meaning breakdown & repair it
visualise & create images
spot VIP words or phrases & put together to build meaning
Every lesson begins with the children reading the text outloud to either a peer or together as a whole class. Sometimes the teacher might model using expression and intonation whilst reading outloud for the children to echo read afterwards.
Once the text has been read, children will discuss unknown Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary and use taught skills to decipher the meaning. One day of The Reading Week is dedicated to children learning these skills.
After the children fully understand the text and what it means, they can then move on to answering a range of comprehensions questions where they will learn the skills of retrieving and infering information. Children will also be taught the more complex skills of explaining their answers by using evidence from the text to support their ideas.
Finally, children will summarise what they have read before moving onto the next part of the story or book they are working with.
For more information...
Miss Devlin is our Literacy lead.
Please feel free to speak to her with any questions that you may have.