READING SCHEMES AT OAKDENE PRIMARY SCHOOL
At Oakdene we use materials from reading schemes in a variety of ways.
- Oxford Reading Tree—This scheme is used for early readers and books can be brought home and changed daily. We also have sets of phonically decodable Oxford Reading Tree books to use in school for guided Reading sessions.
- Lighthouse Guided Reading Sets—These fiction and non-fiction books are used for Early and Emerging readers. Their content helps with the teaching and learning of reading comprehension.
- Collins Guided Reading Sets– These non fiction and fiction books are used for Emerging, Developing and Advancing reading skills.
Oakdene Primary School believes in both the importance of developing children’s discrete word-reading skills and comprehension, and the need to foster a love of books and reading. We recognise that the two elements are intertwined; each relies on the other if children are to become life-long readers.
We recognise that being able to read well is a key life skill for all children, whatever their background we believe that every child can learn to read with the right teaching and support. We acknowledge that not all children will have had the opportunity to develop a love of reading at home, so this has to be taught and encouraged at school – just like any other area of the curriculum.
We build time for all children to read independently, read aloud and be read to during the school day. We have developed a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading for pleasure and invest heavily in both money and time to support reading, including buying high quality books and creating stimulating library areas. Oakdene has four exciting, well stocked library areas which are distinct from classrooms and fully involve pupils, as librarians, in running them. There are three fiction libraries and one non-fiction. Micro Librarian is in place to support the organisation, use and management of borrowing books from the libraries throughout school.
In line with research undertaken on the effective development and the impact of library areas in primary schools, we linked a school based artist in residence project to launch the opening of new library areas two years ago. Children named the fiction libraries in school – Wonderland, Narnia and Hogwarts. The artist in residence Bub Bacon who worked with children to develop 3D sculptures to bring the library areas to life and ensure a sense of ownership from the children.
Each year group has at least one Key author which they study throughout the year. The children get to know the style of the author and are exposed to a range of different titles for each author. This allows the children to read a huge repertoire and different styles of fiction before they leave Oakdene.
Key authors covered are:
Little sycamores – Rod Campbell
Nursery – Mick Inkpen and Eric Carle
Reception – Giles Andreae and Oliver Jeffers
Year 1 – Julia Donaldson
Year 2 – Anthony Browne and Jackie Morris
Year 3 – Dick King Smith
Year 4 – Anne Fine
Year 5 –Roald Dahl
Year 6 – Michael Morpurgo
Useful websites to help your child at home are:
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey
www.oxfordowl.co.uk/storyteller-videos
