Our Vision for Reading
Our vision for Reading at Horsley C of E Primary School is to foster a lifelong love of reading and ensure every pupil becomes a confident, fluent reader. Through a rich and diverse reading curriculum, we aim to give pupils the skills to decode text, comprehend meaning, and think critically about what they read. We are committed to developing each child's reading ability for pleasure and purpose, creating a strong foundation for academic success and personal growth. We encourage empathy, imagination, and a deeper understanding of the world by exposing pupils to various genres, authors, and cultures. Our vision is to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ability, can thrive as a reader and experience the joy and empowerment of reading.
Core Class Reading Booklists at Horsley
Recommended book lists by year group (click the year group)
We are proud of what our children achieve in reading
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Summary of the DfE's Reading Framework Update 2023
Reading for Pleasure
We believe that all children should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers who are able to comprehend and understand a wide range of both fiction and non-fiction texts. We want them to develop a love of reading, a good knowledge of a range of authors and be able to understand more about the world in which they live, through the knowledge they gain from texts.
‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)
At Horsley Primary School we are passionate about reading! Reading is one of the most important skills that children develop at Primary School. It allows them to understand the world around them, access fantastic worlds with engaging characters and exciting adventures and comprehend concepts across the curriculum.
Developing a love of reading across the school is one of our goals at Horsley Primary School. Reading is not something that children should only do in school; it needs to be an everyday part of our lives, something we choose to do at all ages. At Horsley Primary School we want to build a culture of reading for enjoyment that will benefit children in so many ways. We recognise that reading for pleasure will encourage children to succeed both academically and socially.
Research shows that children face challenges in choosing appropriate reading material. Our curriculum and the choices in text we make in school are developed in conjunction with the CLPE. The CLPE is the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. To help support schools and families they have developed core book lists which contain reading material which not only benefits children's reading development but even more importantly are texts that children love to read. Their website is https://clpe.org.uk/corebooks. This is free and has materials for children 3-11 years old with sections for all including reluctant readers, emerging readers and more able readers.
Developing a love of reading across the school is one of our goals at Horsley Primary School. Reading is not something that children should only do in school; it needs to be an everyday part of our lives, something we choose to do at all ages. At Horsley Primary School we want to build a culture of reading for enjoyment that will benefit children in so many ways. We recognise that reading for pleasure will encourage children to succeed both academically and socially.
Research shows that children face challenges in choosing appropriate reading material. Our curriculum and the choices in text we make in school are developed in conjunction with the CLPE. The CLPE is the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. To help support schools and families they have developed core book lists which contain reading material which not only benefits children's reading development but even more importantly are texts that children love to read. Their website is https://clpe.org.uk/corebooks. This is free and has materials for children 3-11 years old with sections for all including reluctant readers, emerging readers and more able readers.
“Books enable children to discover new worlds, meet new people and learn about the past, but they also have the power to transform lives. By sparking growing imaginations, stimulating critical thinking and helping to develop empathy, reading gives children the very skills they need to succeed at school, at work and in life.”
Cressida Cowell, author of How to Train Your Dragon
New Books that EnrichAt Horsley School, new books are carefully chosen to enrich our reading curriculum and inspire a love of reading. With the generous support of Friends of Horsley School, we can expand our collection through valued reading partnerships. We work closely with Nailsworth Library and our local independent bookshop, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, to source high-quality texts. Guidance from our English consultant, Vicky Gordon, along with expert recommendations from The Literacy Shed and CLPE, helps ensure a diverse and engaging selection. Additionally, we value the input of our Reading Teachers and Reading Pupils, whose recommendations ensure that our book choices reflect the interests and needs of our learners.
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Fluency at HorsleyFluency is more than just reading quickly; it involves accuracy, automaticity, and prosody (expression and phrasing). When children read fluently, they can focus on understanding the text rather than decoding individual words. Effective teaching ensures that pupils develop the necessary decoding skills first, allowing them to progress towards reading with speed and expression. This ultimately supports comprehension and a love of reading. At Horsley, we teach fluency discreetly and model reading with expression and confidence through a range of reading lessons, including Little Wandle's LKS2 fluency sessions.
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Reading Comprehension at Horsley
Our reading comprehension lessons use The Literacy Shed's VIPERS approach to teach vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, and sequencing/summarising types of questions to help pupils develop key reading skills. Lessons are structured to focus on each skill through engaging texts, often the class novel or cross-curriculum themes, and use the questions to help pupils critically engage and understand texts deeply. This approach builds confidence and equips pupils with the tools to interpret and analyse a wide range of texts, fostering a strong foundation in comprehension across all year groups.
Snapped at Home
We encourage the children to read at home every day in a variety of ways. Whether that is sharing a story, listening to an audiobook or reading aloud to a younger member of the family. We ask children to take several books home to read, share and enjoy together as a family!
Oracy at Horsley
As well as reading, oracy is a priority at Horsley. In response to the pandemic we noticed children returned with challenges and this included talking. Through CPD and audit we are delivering oracy in every classroom through a high quality oracy education where students learn through talk and to talk. They develop and deepen their subject knowledge and understanding through talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable them to learn the skills needed to talk effectively.
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Look Who's Talking Finalists
Our School Library
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Our library is key to promoting a love of learning. As the heart of our school's reading community, it is where children read, listen to a story and choose books to take hime and share with family. It has recently been reorganised by a wonderfully resourceful parents, Mrs Pickering, so that EYFS and KS1 children can find books more easily.
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PM Levels and Book Band Colours
PM is the largest and most finely levelled reading programme in the UK, with a pedagogically sound, proven approach to making every child a successful, balanced reader. The PM collection contains over 1000 carefully levelled fiction and non-fiction texts, organised by series strand and by colour band.
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The PM Benchmark Kit measures a student's: instructional reading level, ability to read for meaning, ability to integrate meaning with structural and visual cues, use of self-monitoring systems, knowledge of print conventions, rate of learning, level of independence. At Horsley, we use to accurately assess children's current level and to measure progress.
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Mystery Readers
Our mystery readers sign up in secret and surprise the class by reading a book to them when they least expect it. Friends and family are invited to sign up and enjoy a book with Foxes or Badgers.
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Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils
RTRP is a national network of teachers reading groups designed to inspire children to read for pleasure because research shows that children who read for pleasure experience high levels of well-being, engage in learning and are successful in life.
Read with Me
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Volunteers from Read with Me hear our children read twice a week for 10-15 minutes – they provide one to one reading time reading appropriate texts with questions that creates discussion which in turn improves social and communication skills and builds confidence.
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Boosting Reading at Primary
This intervention is for pupils who can read, but need a little extra work on fluency, story voice and pace. The main aim is to develop independent reading and comprehension skills. It aims enable children to be independent problem solvers who read with understanding and enjoyment.
BR@P is a 10-week intervention programme delivered one-to-one, by a trained adult three times a week. Each session lasts 15 minutes and includes:
BR@P is a 10-week intervention programme delivered one-to-one, by a trained adult three times a week. Each session lasts 15 minutes and includes:
- Practicing independent reading skills on familiar texts
- Ongoing assessment
- Working on unfamiliar text with support, leading to independence and understanding.
'In It to Win It' - Spelling Competition
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Our weekly spelling competition, 'In It to Win It', inspires children to learn their spellings and to use them accurately in their writing. Children are entered into the prize draw on successfully reaching full marks in their spelling test.
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World Book Day's Six Elements - One Reading Superpower
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The evidence base shows there are six building elements which support a child to read for pleasure
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