At Osbaldwick we want children to become fully immersed in their class book and develop a love of reading to ensure they become lifelong readers.
Substantive Knowledge
We believe that a secure foundation in basic skills is crucial to progression in reading. This is because a skilled reader requires accurate, speedy word reading alongside good language comprehension. It is our aim that our pupils leave school fluent in the building blocks of reading: syntax, context, vocabulary, knowledge of narrative structure, prosody and fluency. This is why at Osbaldwick, all pupils are taught a broad curriculum that will allow them to comprehend increasingly complex texts which are selected not only on the ‘difficulty’ of their semantics and syntax but also on their layout, linguistic features, levels of meaning, text structure, narration style, and their references to different cultures and concepts.
Disciplinary Knowledge
We use a three part sequenced approach to teaching reading across the school which allows children to develop a deeper understanding of the book and gives them the opportunity to apply the basic skills and building blocks of reading.
The initial part of the sequence ‘First Encounters’ is where children are asked to make predictions about the book based on the cover, blurb, images or vocabulary that might appear in the book. Alongside their first impressions, it also allows children to be given the background information and context they need to be able to access the book.
The second part in the sequence is called ‘Digging Deeper’. This aims to explore the book further and to delve into themes, characters and language present within a book. It is covered in many different ways such as conscience alley, freeze frames, character interviews, newspaper reports, in order to ensure that children are fully engaged and really understand their book.
The final part of the sequence is called ‘Back to me’. This part of the sequence ensures that the book and its themes are brought back to the child and their individual learning journey. So it could pose questions such as, ‘What would I have done?’ ‘Is it ever alright to steal?’ ‘How can I help protect the trees around me?’
