Reading

Parkfield's Reading River (Progression of Texts)

Parkfield's famous Library

As part our venture to ensure all children find enjoyment in reading, we have an amazing library in our school. Run by our fabulous librarian, Mrs Dennehy, the children love going to the library weekly to choose a book for home. And with over 1,000 beautiful books to choose from, this is not always an easy task!

Teaching of Reading at Parkfield

Reading Lessons - EYFS - Year 2

Daily Carousel Reading Sessions

Children in Years EYFS - Year 2 participate in daily reading sessions of 30 minutes each following the guidelines of Little Wandle. Set up in a carousel style, the children will rotate between 5 different reading activities. Three of these sessions will be a Guided Reading Session with the Class Teacher or Support Staff. The other activities will be linked to the phonics sounds they have learnt or be a follow up activity to the book they have read in the guided sessions. There will also be a Reading for Pleasure session where children will have a chance to read a book from the Classroom Library or from a box of books linked to the topic provided by Barnet Library Service.

Reading Lessons Year 2 - 6

Whole Class Reading Sessions

Years 5 and 6 complete reading sessions, as a whole class. Based off a high-quality and challenging texts, the students will do a range of reading including independent reading, listening to reading modelled, paired reading and choral reading. All of the students will have access to the same activities and levels of questioning and will be led in a discussion to help pupils get to grips with new vocabulary and develop their understanding of the text. Depending on the activity, pupils may work in mixed-ability groups, pairs or by themselves.

Once a week, we also do an independent comprehension session. In this session, children will practice the a range of comprehension skills independently and work on using the text to support their responses.

Accelerated Reader - Home Reading Books

Accelerated Reader is a computer program that will help to develop children’s independent reading. It works in quite a simple way; the child will pick a book at their own level, and when finished will take a short quiz on the computer. The quiz is a key feature of how we change home reading books at school for Years 2-6, but is a really important step because if they can pass a quiz about what they have read then this tells us that they have fully understood the content of their book.

All children have undertaken a short reading test that has assigned them a reading band (or Z.P.D.). They are then able to select a book from our library that falls within their Z.P.D. This reading band guides children towards choosing books at an appropriate reading level that are challenging without being frustrating. The aim is for them to pass the quiz and be successful.

All of our home reading books in school have been labelled and put into colour bands that will help with choosing appropriate books. One of the best parts about using Accelerated Reader is that the children can choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This in turn, makes reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.