Reading at Kingsway

At Kingsway Junior School, we value reading very highly. We aim to develop pupils’ reading skills by working with a broad range of extended texts, both fiction and non-fiction. We teach our children how to  read  texts fluently, with deep understanding, and we  encourage them to read for pleasure.  We teach reading to our pupils in the following ways:

Reading in School

Whole Class Books - English lessons are taught  through  quality texts  which  have been carefully chosen to engage the children, and inspire a whole range of writing opportunities  linked to the book.  Across the year, children will work with a wide range of  texts  including  picture books, story books, Shakespeare stories and poetry.

Guided Reading - Teachers work with small groups of pupils to teach specific and targeted reading skills in books  that are  challenging and will develop  their reading skills. Guided reading lessons will show children how to engage deeply with different texts thus developing their comprehension. The aim is to support children in reading books of increasing challenge in order to prepare them for all the reading they will need to undertake across many subjects in their future education. Children undertake a  range of reading activities during guided reading lessons  including independent reading in order to develop their resilience in reading extended texts.

Class Story – The last 10 minutes of every day is dedicated to children listening to their teacher read; this might be reading from their whole class book from English lessons,  or it might be something completely different.

Reading for Pleasure – At Kingsway Juniors,  we also promote children’s own reading for pleasure. Children go to our library every week and can choose any book that interests them, or that they would like to try reading.  We encourage children to try different authors and  non-fiction books, so that they can begin to identify the authors and subjects that bring them joy in their reading.

Children can take their library-book  home  in addition to their own reading-book, Their reading-book is chosen from the class reading corner  and should be a book they can read with relative ease.

Reading at Home

How can parents/carers  help?  

Parents/Carers  are encouraged to hear their children read  their school reading-book and sign their reading-record.   Reading any texts is also widely encouraged – magazines, comics, library-books and even cereal packets!

Sometimes it can be hard to know how to support your child in developing their reading skills. We have prepared some ideas below:

Tips to help you support your child with reading at home – Look, Listen, Talk

My child’s a good reader – how can I help them get even better?

Which books would be good for my child to read?

When  choosing books for children to read, it can be very confusing to identify the books that are appropriate for each age-group.

At Kingsway, we have a  list of recommended reads for each year-group. Some of them might be used in class or guided reading lessons. Don’t worry about your child re-reading a book that they’ve seen before – this has actually been proven to help children get more fluent in their reading and improves their understanding of trickier books.  

Please see below for recommended reads for each year group.

For more ideas of books to read for different age groups, take a look at this link: