Reading for Pleasure is a central focus at Longvernal and it should permeate our school day. Each class has a dedicated Book Nook filled with high quality books. In addition, the Reading Lodge promotes a love of books and storytelling and as well as weekly class slots, it is open by our Reading Leaders every day. Every year group visits the library each short term. The class teacher has a class library card, allowing the children to borrow books, which can be returned at a later date. This gives the children access to thousands of books as well as encourages a new generation of library users. Our teachers and support staff love reading children’s literature too and will often get caught reading by the children. All of our staff are encouraged to read books on prize-winning awards lists.Teachers have their own special book that children can borrow if they promise to respect and take care of them. Each Class is given a must read list of books and the children are encouraged to read as many as they can with a prize for the class that manages the most. Everyday, story time takes a special place in the children’s day. Children throughout the school will engage in Book Talk every week. Here, they will discuss genres, predictions and recommendations, often enthusing their peers. To encourage a creative  response to their reading, children in KS2 will keep a scrapbook style Reading Journal. Each week during celebration assembly, the Reader of the Week ascends the golden ladder to choose a book from the Golden Bookcase.

At Longvernal we wholeheartedly understand the importance of learning to read and the doors that are opened by nurturing a love of books. If writing is breathing out then reading is breathing in. The research supports the idea that confident readers have a head start in life and that is what we wish to instill in all at  Longvernal.

At Longvernal Primary School we ensure we are a strong team of expert reading teachers The English Coordinator supports, supplements and extends classroom teaching, and works collaboratively with the class teachers to implement a quality reading programme that is research-based and meets the needs of our pupils. Teachers throughout the school share planning and expertise to help ensure consistency and progression for pupils. Pupil Progress meetings are held three times a year with reading, and phonics, a focus for discussion.  

Our lowest 20% pupils in each class are supported with urgency to secure their progression. First and foremost, the Phonics and Early Reading Leads monitor phonics lessons to ensure all are of the highest standard, thereby reducing the number of pupils who need extra support. In addition, daily short, 1:1 and group interventions are in place for those pupils falling behind. These children will also be placed on the class teachers’ Priority Readers list and will be heard reading aloud to an adult as frequently as possible, which may be twice a day in some cases. In KS2, Class Teachers will ensure that the lowest 20% are matched to a book that is phonetically decodable inline with their learning. When these children become secure with phonics sounds, Class Teachers will ensure they are matched, to our high quality Barrington Stoke books, by both reading age and by undertaking a miscue analysis to ensure that there is a rate of accuracy between 90 and 94%. New starters, at Longvernal, are assessed within their first week and interventions put in place where needed.  We pride ourselves on having excellent relationships with parents and we encourage them to support their child at home with advice, activities and resources provided where appropriate. 

Our Whole Class Guided Reading lessons, which happen four times a week throughout KS1 and 2, offer the benefits of increased exposure to challenging texts, increased time for deep exploration of a text and the opportunity for class discussion. Class teachers closely follow our Reading Spine, which has been developed so that pupils gain a rich literary canon to allow them to access the best of what has been written for children, throughout their time at Longvernal. Our Reading Spine, which was informed by “The Five Plagues of the Developing Reader” by Doug Lemov, can be accessed from our website. In each Guided Reading lesson, the children first will unpick the Tier Two vocabulary to ensure they can access the challenging text. These words will be documented on a word wall as well as in their books, building a vast usable bank of vocabulary. Through discussion and questioning the children then develop critical analysis of: vocabulary; inferences; predictions; explanation of the author’s choice or intent and impact of the text on the reader; retrieval; sequencing or summarising; making links or comparisons with other themes, plot, settings, and characters as well as cross-curricular or real-life experiences; and finally Pupil response, which could be a written task for example a diary entry in character asking questions about the text.