SHARED READING AT ST. JOSEPH'S

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. This resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that incorporate metacognitive strategies and showcase diverse literature from a range of exceptional authors. It aims to inspire children and their families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information. We intend that all pupils from Year 2 to Year 6, regardless of need, ability or background, have the opportunity to meet and, where possible, exceed the National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension.

Ready Steady Read Together ensures that every pupil has access to high-quality texts, enabling them to experience rich literature that develops fluency, vocabulary and deep understanding. Through explicit teacher modelling of expression, pace, intonation and prosody, children learn how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support comprehension. Shared reading also provides regular opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and exploration of language. These approaches deepen comprehension while strengthening oracy skills. 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.

At St. Joseph's we want all of our children to grow up loving reading. We want them to be confident, engaged readers who can use their skills to access the world of work as well as to find enjoyment and relaxation.

We know that all of this is dependent upon being fully secure with the mechanics of reading and for this, we rely solely on the Read Write Inc. programme, which we are loyal to throughout EYFS and KS1 as well as into KS2 where necessary. Children are regularly assessed and monitored as they make their individual journey through the stages of RWInc. and their school-based learning is supported by taking home RWInc. books to read and share with their families.

When the children are ready to leave the RWInc. programme they progress to RWInc. comprehension, which supports them with acquiring skills that go beyond fluency and word recognition. Where a little extra support is required, we use RWInc. intervention programmes to give a necessary boost and move the children forwards.

In KS2, our children use reading books from the Oxford Treetops KS2 Scheme until they are confident and fluent enough to select appropriate books from the school and class libraries. Staff make sure that selected books are tailored to their specific reading level. Children are also, of course, encouraged to read their own books at home and at school.

Ready Steady Read Together sessions are taught daily in Years 2–6 and these are exciting, fast-paced sessions that develop comprehension, fluency and vocabulary, as well as getting children enthused about a range of different and wonderful books.

We promote the idea that reading is fun as well as functional, and we make sure that our children have lots of opportunities to fall in love with books and with reading. Each week, one of our classes spends some time at the local town library – where every child has an account – and pupils have the opportunity to return and choose books as well as to sit quietly alongside their friends and teachers and read. Our school and class libraries provide children with opportunities to select from a wide range of high-quality texts.

We celebrate World Book Day as well as National Poetry Day and hold book fayres and second-hand book sales in school. It is our hope and intention that all of our children learn to see reading as something that is for them; something that will open endless doors and windows throughout their lives and bring them success, contentment and happiness.