Reading at Willow
Reading Intent
Reading is one of our most important curriculum drivers - to develop fluent and able readers - and is therefore at the very heart of our curriculum.
At Willow, we value reading as a key life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We believe that all pupils should have the opportunity to become fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully understand a wide range of texts. We want pupils to develop a love of reading; a good knowledge of a range of authors and genres; and be able to understand more about the world in which they live through the knowledge they gain from texts.
By the end of their time at Willow, all children should be able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve in reading and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. Our reading curriculum is ambitious and diverse in the progression of the carefully selected key texts that underpin it; we want our children to be able to see themselves reflected in the texts that we use with them as well as being able to see into worlds and lives beyond their own. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills.
Reading Implementation
Phonics and Early Reading
Willow Primary School follows the Read Write Inc. (RWI) scheme. This programme matches the expectations of the National Curriculum. Teaching follows termly expectations for the teaching of GPC and word reading.
Leaders prioritise time to ensure that phonics teaching shows fidelity to the scheme and there is consistency across school. This is achieved through show-casing best practice sessions, regular professional development and opportunities for the phonics leads to coach and team-teach alongside colleagues in school. Standards are carefully monitored.
Once children are in Reception they take part in Read, Write, Inc. where they learn over forty sounds and many tricky words (common exception words). This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters using pictures and phrases to help them. The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know.
Phonics is taught consistently across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 and reading teachers are coached and supported to ensure that this is the case. Grouping the children ensures that their needs are met and 1:1 tutoring means that they are supported to keep up with their group. The rigor of the six-week assessment cycle guarantees that progress is very closely monitored and the termly support of an external Read, Write Inc. consultant trainer provides opportunities to make certain that the children are making the best possible progress.
Key Stage 1 children also bring home reading for pleasure books as well as their Read, Write Inc phonics book.
Beyond Phonics
Once pupils have secured their phonics knowledge, we continue to develop their ability to read accurately, fluently, confidently and with understanding. See the 6 step reading sequence below.
Every year we hold parent information sessions about Read, Write Inc. that explain how we teach phonics and reading at Willow and how you can help your child at home. A recording of this session can be seen below:
Reading in Key Stage 2
By the end of Year 2, your child should be able to read aloud books that are at the right level for his or her age. In Year 3 and beyond, we concentrate more on helping children to understand what they are reading, although this work begins very early on.
Within Key stage 2, children who are still identified as Early readers have access to Read, Write inc phonics. Within KS2, reading diagnostics are used to identify pupils who may need additional support to make reading progress. Structured interventions are used to support these pupils
Whole class reading
Children are taught how to understand what they read as a whole class using quality texts. Where possible, these texts are linked to the topic that the class is studying.
We follow a 6 step reading sequence for the planning and teaching of whole class reading. The 6 steps are:
Vocabulary – exploring the meaning of new words in the text
Shared reading – involving teacher modelling and independent annotation of the text with thoughts and ideas using prior knowledge as a reference point
Fluency – developing fluent reading through echo reading and text marking
Analyse – developing understanding of themes, characters and ideas in the text
Respond – answering questions from a particular content domain such as: inference, prediction or retrieval
Apply skills – using all reading skills to answer a range of questions that reflect the style of those in statutory tests
The six-step whole class reading teaching sequence ensures that reading continues to be taught consistently once the children have completed Read, Write Inc. Phonics. All children have the same balance of lessons focusing on the different reading skills and content domain coverage is appropriate for the different phases. Children are able to articulate what their strengths are and what they need to improve in relation to the reading skills that they are taught.
Shared Reading
The video below explains how we teach shared reading in school and gives you ideas of the kind of discussion you can have with your child when reading.
Reading Fluency
The video below shows how we teach echo reading and reading fluency in school.
Reading Plus
In KS2, Reading Plus, an online reading programme that's packed full of engaging texts for pupils to explore and enjoy, is used to develop silent reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary with software that meets each pupil's individual reading level. Reading Plus begins with an adaptive assessment that pupils complete on their own. The results from this provide a baseline and the starting point for a pupil's journey through the programme. Weekly assignments are set with personalised instructions for pupils, these include visual skills development for eye-tracking, reading tasks for comprehension and fluency, and vocabulary tasks.
Daily reading and Reading for Pleasure sessions
Daily reading sessions are timetabled for all classes where adults listen to all children read and discuss what they have read.
At Willow we value the importance of reading for pleasure and one of the daily reading sessions each week is an extended session. In Year 1 (from summer term) and in Year 2, children take part in “Book shopping” where they learn about how to choose from a wide range of books and start to develop stamina for reading.
In KS2, each class has an extended social reading session, where they have the opportunity to choose from a wide range of genres and topics in their reading material and talk about what they are reading. As part of this session, they will also make book recommendations and make use of the reading environments within classrooms. These sessions are important as they expose children to a range of reading materials so that they can then make their own informed choices about what they want to read for pleasure. They also develop skills such as book talk, recommending books and making comparisons.
Our library shared areas and within classrooms showcase a diverse range of authors and genres. This ensures that the children have a wide range of books to choose from that are appropriately challenging and provide opportunities for children to make good progress in their independent reading.
Daily Story-time
Each class enjoys a story time session every day and the whole class enjoys listening to the class reader. These core texts may be linked with the curriculum to give further background knowledge, they may be classic stories or favourite stories or can be chose simply because they are a good read. These chosen texts support our aim of providing children with exposure to a wide range of genres and authors throughout their time at Willow.
Reading at home
Our school uses, 'Learning with parents' digital reading log' to log children reading at home and at school. This allows the school and parents to easily track progress.
Reading Impact
Phonics is taught consistently across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 and reading teachers are coached and supported to ensure that this is the case. Grouping the children ensures that their needs are met and 1:1 tutoring means that they are supported to keep up with their group. The rigor of the six-week assessment cycle guarantees that progress is very closely monitored and the termly support of an external Read, Write Inc. consultant trainer provides opportunities to make certain that the children are making the best possible progress.
Our Year 1 phonics screening data shows that over the past four years the percentage of children reaching the expected standard has been above the National Average; 89% of Year 1 children achieved the expected standard in phonics and 100% of Year 2 children achieving the expected standard at the end of Year 2 in Summer 2025.
Pupil voice shows that our Reception and Key Stage 1 children have confidence in their reading ability. Key Stage 1 children also bring home reading for pleasure books as well as their Read, Write Inc phonics book.
The six-step whole class reading teaching sequence ensures that reading continues to be taught consistently once the children have completed Read, Write Inc. Phonics. All children have the same balance of lessons focusing on the different reading skills and content domain coverage is appropriate for the different phases. Children are able to articulate what their strengths are and what they need to improve in relation to the reading skills that they are taught. Children also access the Reading Plus Programme in Key Stage 2 where they develop their independent reading fluency rate as well as their reading comprehension skills.
Our library shared areas and within classrooms showcase a diverse range of authors and genres. This ensures that the children have a wide range of books to choose from that are appropriately challenging and provide opportunities for children to make good progress in their independent reading.