Developing Reading
At Easterside Academy, we use a number of different strategies to promote a child’s love of books and encourage them to become confident, independent readers. Children are provided with many opportunities to read, enjoy and share books as well as being immersed in language rich environments with access to a breadth of vocabulary and print.
Developing Fluency
Building on the Little Wandle programme, we have developed a rigorous and sequential approach to the reading curriculum which develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading. Our ‘Reading Fluency’ approach develops pupils’ understanding of vocabulary and provides opportunities for children to hear and echo excellent models of reading at levels appropriate to their age and ability.
Fluency
Daily reading lessons include a 20 to 30 minute short reading fluency ritual where pupils are explicitly taught how to read a text fluently with appropriate prosody using the 6 Ps (pitch, power, pace, punctuation, pause and pronunciation). In these sessions, children enjoy carefully curated information texts or extracts from a range of genres including familiar favourites that they know and love.
Comprehension
Comprehension refers to the way in which we make sense of words, sentences and the wider language we hear or read. A key purpose of our reading lessons is to help children to draw on their background knowledge to construct a coherent mental model of what they are reading or listening to.
Over the course of Year 2 and into Key Stage 2, the focus of the teaching of reading therefore shifts from decoding words towards ensuring pupils get experience and support with listening to, thinking deeply about and discussing a wide range of rich and challenging texts through teacher-led sessions. Children develop their fluency through practice: both reading independently and in pairs.
Our Reading Curriculum
Our progressive reading comprehension scheme provides a structured approach to teaching and assessing. Daily reading sessions support children to develop and simultaneously use a range of comprehension strategies to yield meaning from what they read.
By the end of Year 6, our goal is for all of our pupils’ reading to be sufficiently fluent and effortless in order for them to manage the general demands of the Year 7 curriculum across all subjects and not just in English and ensure that they are well prepared for the next step in their educational journey.
Reading Plus 
From Year 4 to Year 6 children take part in Reading Plus sessions. Reading Plus is an adaptive literacy program that develops the fluency, comprehension, and motivation students need to be successful readers. Reading Plus customizes instruction for every student by placing pupils at their just-right levels based on assessment data, and continually adapting to ongoing progress. Children have access to Reading Plus from home and are encouraged to read at least 3 times a week.