Reading is an important part of the curriculum in KS2. This page will give you some information on how reading is taught at our school and how you can support your child at home.
Reading for Pleasure
At St Thomas More CVA, we aim to foster a love of reading in all children.
The children are read aloud to regularly throughout the week in class. The ‘Reading for Pleasure’ books shared with the children are planned out at the beginning of the year ensuring a range of books including fiction, non fiction and poetry.
Reading is celebrated at St Thomas More CVA and during the year each class will nominate a ‘Reader of the Week’.
In KS2 each class runs a weekly Book Club which gives children a chance to discuss their reading at home in a social and reflective way. Children are encouraged to think about what they enjoy reading and listen to recommendations from peers to encourage them to become active, independent readers.
Reading Comprehension
Whole class reading is used in KS2 to ensure reading is given the sufficient time and emphasis needed for children to continue to develop their word reading and comprehension. Whole class reading is taught at least 3 times a week and uses the VIPERS approach which focuses on the following reading skills: Vocabulary, Inference, Predicting, Explaining, Retrieval and Summarising.
Whole class reading books and extracts are carefully selected by teachers to give the children the opportunity to access and enjoy vocabulary rich, quality texts from a range of authors including classic and more contemporary writers.
Individual Reading
Children will have individual reading books sent home to be read and shared with parents on a regular basis. These books are matched to the child’s reading ability allowing them to improve their fluency at accuracy.
Children will have their reading level benchmarked regularly to ensure they have banded books that provide appropriate challenge. Once children have been assessed as reading and understanding texts at a level above that of the reading schemes followed in school then they will become a ‘Free Reader’ allowing them to select books themselves from the vast range we have in our class libraries.
All children have the opportunity to regularly access our school library and borrow books that they choose.
Supporting Reading at Home
Research has shown that reading for pleasure can make a huge difference to children – not only academically (even in subjects like maths) but also socially and emotionally. Just ten minutes shared reading a day can help your child grow into a happy, confident learner.
Even if your child is a confident, independent reader it is still very beneficial for your child to also hear you reading aloud to them so please do share books together even as they get older.
In addition to hearing your child read aloud, here are some suggested questions you could ask to support their understanding:
“What has just happened?”
“Why do you think the character did that?”
“How do you think the character is feeling? Why do you think that?”
“What do you think is going to happen next?”
“What does this word mean?”/ “Can you find a word on the page that means….?”
“Do you like this book? Why/Why not?”
“What would you have done in this situation?”
Additional Resources
Our school subscribes to ReadTheory. Your child will have been given a login and password.
It can be accessed here:
ReadTheory | Free Reading Comprehension Practice for Students and Teachers
