Reading

At Willow Primary School, reading is a core curriculum driver, designed to develop fluent, confident and enthusiastic lifelong readers who are well-prepared for secondary education and beyond. Our reading curriculum inspires a love of books, develops vocabulary and comprehension, and enables all pupils to access learning across the curriculum.

Curriculum Delivery & Progression

Our reading curriculum builds progressively on prior knowledge, ensuring that all pupils develop the skills and confidence needed to become successful, independent readers:

Phonics & Early Reading

We use Read Write Inc. (RWI) in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2. Regular checks, staff coaching, and 1-to-1 support ensure every child masters phonics and reads accurately.

Fluency & Comprehension

Children practice reading aloud to build speed, expression, and understanding. In Key Stage 2, whole-class reading lessons and the Reading Plus program help pupils become fluent, confident readers.

Vocabulary & Understanding

Rich books, direct vocabulary lessons, and group discussions help pupils understand deeper meanings, explain their ideas, and learn about the wider world.

Reading for Pleasure

Daily storytime, book swapping, and dedicated reading sessions build a strong reading culture and expose children to a wide range of books and authors.

Inclusion & Support

Every child accesses our full reading curriculum. Anyone falling behind receives tailored support to help them quickly catch up.

Home-School Partnership

We encourage families to read together at home. Parents log reading progress digitally through Learning with Parents to keep home and school connected.

Long-Term Plan & Subject Roadmap

Curriculum Impact

By the end of Key Stage 2, pupils will:

• Read fluently, accurately and with confidence, using appropriate expression and pace.
• Demonstrate secure comprehension, including the ability to retrieve information, explain vocabulary, make inferences and justify their views using evidence from texts.
• Read widely and regularly, developing a genuine enjoyment of books and literature.
• Apply their reading skills across the wider curriculum to deepen their knowledge and understanding.
• Be equipped with the reading skills and independence needed for a successful transition to secondary education.

Further Information

For further information about reading at Willow Primary School, please contact the school office or our Reading Subject Lead at admin@willow.elp.org.uk.

 

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.