Building A Reading Partnership

Reading Ambition at Pineham Barns

At Pineham Barns, we firmly believe that reading is the key to unlocking every child’s full potential and opens up a world of possibilities. Ultimately, our ambition is to encourage our children to become learners who enjoy reading and have a repertoire of reading skills which they can use to open the door to new discoveries, knowledge, creativity and confidence. From the very outset, we place huge emphasis on ensuring every child masters the early reading skills and are able to decode fluently through the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics. From this, all our children will develop life-long reading habits and a love of literature. Through a text-rich curriculum, explicit vocabulary teaching and a language rich school, we expose children to new worlds, experiences and ideas, expanding their horizons. Our choice of texts will both value and confirm students’ linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds as well as introducing them to contexts beyond those they are familiar with.

How do we help children to read.

At our school, we use a variety of strategies to support the teaching of reading, as all learners are individual and therefore can require different approaches to secure their skills. In recognition of this, teachers use a variety of decoding skills such as phonics and picture cues to ensure all pupils become competent and confident readers who enjoy the written word. Furthermore, parent workshops which focus on the different strategies used ensure that families are able to actively support their child’s learning needs at home.

Independent reading books support children at an individual level and are carefully chosen by teachers to aid and challenge our pupils. We use a variety of different materials and stimulus to enable our children to develop a love of reading. Our independent reading stage books are from the Oxford Tree Reading Scheme, and provide pupils with opportunities to engage with both fiction, poetry and non-fiction materials. In addition to independent reading, and from the end of the Early Years, all pupils have the opportunity to work in small groups with a member of staff to participate in Guided Reading. This provides pupils with further opportunities to explore challenging texts, discussing their themes to deepen their understanding.

Reading Impact

Our approach leads to children who are learners who, as a result of exceptional experiences, enjoy reading and have a broad repertoire of reading skills which they use to open the door to new discoveries, knowledge, creativity and confidence.

Our outcomes for Reading are as follows for 2019:

In Early Years, 80% of children achieved expected and above age related expectations, which is well above national
Year 1 Phonics Screening Check pass rate 93% this is well above national
40% of children achieved greater depth in reading at the end of Key Stage One, which again is well above national

Reading for Pleasure

At Pineham, one of our main reading priorities is promoting Reading for Pleasure. We have developed a timetable whereby we ensure that all children have access to high-quality, engaging texts in stimulating, inspiring environments like our newly developed Reading Garden. Not only do our children have weekly visits to the library, but they attend Mystery Reader Assemblies, participate in Reading Picnics and take additional books of their choice home with them.

The little things that make Reading extra special at Pineham Barns:

Our Little Libraries:

For all members of our school community to access and swap books in at any time they see fit. It also provides an opportunity for children to also read at break times and lunch times on giant beanbags.

Our Reading Garden and Technology:

This is our newly developed Library which promotes both the schools links with the outdoors and a love of reading. It provides an engaging area which children can read a variety of texts such as newspapers, eBooks, picture books and poetry. We are also working hard to develop our use of technology in reading further through the use of QR codes, videos and HP Reveal

What can you do at home to help?

Sharing a book with your child, the importance of reading at home by Professor Michael Rosen