Reading

At Oakwood, all pupils are encouraged to read widely including both fiction and non-fiction in order to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum. Reading is taught through the English curriculum and reading within class will also be seen across all subject areas and include a wide variety of materials.  Reading skills are also taught explicitly through reading comprehension lessons.  Each class also enjoys a daily story time session with their teacher.  It is important for children to be read to daily and for our staff to model and share a story with a real focus on children being immersed in a range of different genres and authors.  

Oakwood uses the Renaissance Star Reading Scheme which is a complete online assessment of students’ reading growth, allowing teachers to see which skills pupils have mastered aligned to the National Curriculum.  Pupils read books from the scheme and then complete an online assessment tool (in school) to establish comprehension of the book.  Children are encouraged to read at home daily, as part of their homework tasks, and take one book home for enjoyment and one from the REN scheme.  Each pupil has an individual reading record which is completed by parents and school staff. We also encourage our children to make recommendations to each other and be able to articulate their choices and preferences.      

At Oakwood, we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.

We also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on Language development for out children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.