World Book Day 2024

Book Shelfies! 

On the book shelf this week…

Take a look at the whole class texts we share in year 2-6…

At Oakridge we are passionate about our children developing a life-long love of reading. We hope they feel inspired by reading teachers who are also teachers that read. We recognise that confidence and competence in reading can often be the gateway to children unlocking their potential in other curriculum areas so it is paramount they are successful in their early reading development, reading with automaticity and fluency as soon as possible. 

This begins with our systematic synthetic phonics programme in reception and year 1. By the time they reach year 2, we hope they will have cracked the complex 'code' that is the English language, and can use this to segment and blend most unfamiliar words. As soon as they can do this, the two skills of word recognition and language comprehension become entwined and the children can start to read more independently for meaning and ultimately, for pleasure. 

What do reading lessons look like? 

Year R and year 1-
 

• Daily 30 minute phonics lessons 
• 3 reading practice sessions in smaller, teacher led groups. The children in the group will all read the same book and it will be closely matched to their reading level. The first session focuses on decoding, the second on fluency and the third on comprehension (reading for meaning). 

Year 2-
 

• In the Autumn term of year 2, we continue to read in small groups with children reading books closely matched to their phonics ability
• Any children who have not passed the phonics screening receive catch up support 
• By spring, we start 'whole class reading' whereby all the children have the same book, which we use to teach reading comprehension skills such as making predictions and basic inferences, discussing what they have read and how to retrieve information to answer questions.

Year 3, 4, 5 and 6-
 

• In KS2, the children receive daily 30 minute reading lessons centered around a whole class text. This is used as the vehicle for teaching the relevant reading and comprehension skills for each year group. Any children who are reading below age related expectations continue with our Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised rapid catch up programme

The children immensely enjoy the whole class text and it makes for some excellent whole class discussions, which often inspire the writing in our English curriculum. It is, however, important they can apply their reading skills completely independently so regular opportunities to read and respond to an unfamiliar or unseen text are built into our reading lessons each week. 

Phonics and Colour Band Progression, Year R > Year 6

Reading at Home

Click below to find out more about...

• Reading diaries
• Colour bands
• Phonics books 
• Reading for pleasure  

World Book Day 2023

We celebrated World Book Day a little later this year on the 24th March. 

As usual we thoroughly enjoyed the day, getting involved in treasure hunts, book picnics and even visiting Waterstone's travelling book shop! 

The costumes were fabulous- we even had a real life dinosaur in year 6! 

Reading for pleasure is so important and World Book Day promotes exactly that. We're looking forward to next year already!

Reading Ambassadors

This term we have appointed 10 Reading Ambassadors across the junior school. 

It was a very tough selection process as we were inundated superb applications but we are very proud to introduce you to our final 10: 

Year 3: 

• Tiana 
• Brayden 
• Abu 

Year 4: 

• Jake 
• Aria 

Year 5: 

• Talia 
• Gia 
• Adam 

Year 6: 

• Channie 
• Sri 

A special mention also to our honorary members Jessica and Evie, who have pioneered our new 'nature reading club' this term. 

See their brilliant letter to Miss Charman below. 

So far this term the Reading Ambassadors have read and reviewed some of our new library books over their holidays; helped to launch our new lunchtime reading club and have been helping to distribute our 'shelfie' books around school with our much loved Harry Potter trolley!