At New Ford Academy we want our children to develop a life-long love of reading and of books. We follow a range of reading scheme books including Dandelion, Phonics Bug, Project X and Oxford Reading Tree. These reading scheme books are used during children’s early stages of reading to enable them to master the mechanics of the process. Our reading schemes include a range of phonetically decodable text which encourage the children to apply their phonics knowledge. In Early Years and Key Stage 1 children read individually with an adult at least once a week. Children requiring extra support are Target readers and work with an adult more frequently. For children who still require additional support with reading as they move into Key Stage 2, we follow the Better Reading Programme. This is a ten week programme and children have three focussed sessions per week with an adult. If children are identified with a lack of comprehension skills, they have additional support through the Inference Programme or Reading for Meaning Programme.
We supplement the reading scheme with a range of high quality fiction and non-fiction text. High quality books are at the heart our learning at New Ford. Children study the same text within reading and writing lessons. This text also links with the children’s topic for that half term. Guided reading sessions are planned carefully to ensure that children’s skills of comprehension are developed. Children have two high quality guided reading sessions per week.
We encourage children to read at home as often as possible. An age appropriate target for the amount of times a child should read per week is shared with children and parents at the beginning of the year. Children have a reading diary which is part of the communication between home and school and is used to document how many times a child has read during the week as well as any other reading related issues.