Reading

Reading at Harper Bell

At Harper Bell, reading sits at the heart of everything we do. We believe that becoming a successful reader is transformational: it gives pupils access to the full curriculum, broadens their understanding of the world and opens doors to future learning and opportunity.

Our ambition is for every child to become a fluent, confident and thoughtful reader who chooses to read. We therefore place equal importance on teaching pupils how to read, how to understand increasingly complex texts and how to develop a genuine love of books and reading.

Our reading curriculum is deliberately progressive, cumulative and responsive. From the earliest stages of learning to read through to confident independent reading, pupils build securely on what they already know. Teachers continually check what pupils understand, identify gaps or misconceptions and adapt teaching so that every pupil can make progress.

A Progressive Journey: Learning to Read and Reading to Learn

Reading development at Harper Bell is carefully sequenced.

In the early stages, children learn the essential foundations of reading through systematic phonics, developing accurate decoding and increasingly automatic word recognition. As pupils become more secure readers, teaching increasingly develops fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and knowledge of language and the wider world.

Pupils then progress from learning to read to reading to learn. They encounter increasingly ambitious texts, develop the stamina to sustain reading for longer periods and learn to make connections between what they read, what they already know and new knowledge they encounter across the curriculum.

Each stage builds purposefully upon the last so that pupils develop increasingly sophisticated knowledge and understanding rather than encountering reading skills as isolated activities.

Responsive Reading Teaching

At Harper Bell, assessment is woven into teaching rather than being something that happens only at the end of a unit.

Teachers continually check for understanding through purposeful questioning, discussion, retrieval, oral responses, reading aloud and carefully designed tasks. This enables teachers to understand not simply whether a pupil has completed an activity, but what each pupil knows, understands and can apply independently.

Teaching is then adapted responsively. Teachers may revisit prerequisite knowledge, explicitly teach vocabulary, provide further modelling, adjust the level of scaffolding, give additional opportunities for practice or increase challenge when pupils are ready.

Where gaps in reading are identified, they are addressed with urgency and precision so that pupils are supported to keep up wherever possible and can access the wider curriculum successfully.

Developing Fluency

Fluency provides the important bridge between decoding words and understanding what we read.

As pupils become accurate readers, they are explicitly supported to develop accuracy, automaticity, appropriate pace, phrasing and expression. Strategies such as teacher modelling, repeated reading, paired reading and reading aloud enable pupils to hear and practise what fluent reading sounds like.

Developing fluency reduces the cognitive effort required for word reading, allowing pupils to devote greater attention to understanding meaning, making connections and thinking deeply about a text.

Reading at the Centre of the Curriculum

Reading underpins learning across Harper Bell. Pupils have frequent opportunities to read across the curriculum, not only during English and reading lessons but through history, geography, science, RE and the wider curriculum.

Carefully selected texts help pupils acquire new vocabulary, build background knowledge and deepen their understanding of the concepts they are studying.

Our reading curriculum is therefore designed to be:

• Progressive - building systematically from foundational reading skills to increasingly complex reading

• Cumulative - enabling pupils to connect new knowledge to what they already know

• Responsive - using assessment and checking for understanding to shape subsequent teaching

• Ambitious - exposing all pupils to rich vocabulary, ideas and increasingly challenging texts

• Inclusive - identifying barriers quickly and providing the support pupils need to participate successfully

• Knowledge-rich - using reading to expand pupils' understanding of language, people, places, ideas and the wider world

Windows and Mirrors

The texts our pupils encounter are deliberately chosen to provide both windows and mirrors.

Books act as mirrors, enabling children to see aspects of their own lives, cultures, heritage, families and communities represented within the curriculum.

They also provide windows into lives and experiences beyond their own. Pupils encounter different cultures, places, periods of history, beliefs, families and viewpoints, helping them to develop curiosity, empathy and an informed understanding of the diverse world in which they live.

Through high-quality literature, children learn both to value their own identity and to look beyond their immediate experiences.

Developing Skilled and Thoughtful Readers

As pupils become increasingly fluent, teachers explicitly develop the knowledge and strategies required for sophisticated comprehension.

Pupils learn to:

• Develop vocabulary and word knowledge - exploring meaning, morphology, context and increasingly ambitious language

• Retrieve information - identifying and selecting relevant information accurately

• Infer - combining textual evidence with prior knowledge to understand ideas that are not stated explicitly

• Explain and justify - articulating interpretations clearly and supporting ideas with appropriate evidence

• Predict - drawing on textual evidence and wider knowledge to make informed predictions

• Summarise and sequence - identifying the most important information, themes and events

• Make connections - linking ideas within and across texts and drawing upon their growing knowledge of the world

These elements are not taught as disconnected tricks for answering questions. They are developed through sustained engagement with high-quality texts, rich discussion, vocabulary development, background knowledge and increasingly independent reading.

Accelerated Reader

Accelerated Reader supports our progressive approach to independent reading.

Once pupils are ready to access the programme, regular STAR Reading assessments, alongside teacher knowledge and ongoing classroom assessment, help us understand pupils' current reading development.

Children are guided towards appropriately challenging books while retaining meaningful choice and ownership over what they read.

After completing a book, pupils can undertake a short comprehension quiz. Teachers use this information alongside wider assessment evidence to monitor pupils' comprehension, engagement and reading habits.

Accelerated Reader therefore complements rather than replaces high-quality reading teaching. It helps us to:

• Monitor pupils' independent reading

• Support appropriately challenging book choices

• Identify pupils who may require additional support

• Encourage pupils to read increasingly widely

• Celebrate reading success and progress

• Develop independence and positive reading habits

Most importantly, we want the programme to support children in discovering books they genuinely want to read.

Reading for Pleasure

Developing technically proficient readers is only part of our ambition.

We want Harper Bell pupils to become children who actively choose to read, talk enthusiastically about books, develop favourite authors and genres and see reading as something that enriches their lives.

Reading for Pleasure is therefore a key component of our school day and our wider reading culture.

Children regularly experience:

• High-quality stories read aloud by adults

• Independent reading

• Shared reading and book discussion

• Recommendations from adults and other pupils

• Opportunities to explore different authors and genres

• Attractive and accessible classroom reading collections

• Opportunities to revisit favourite books

• Informal conversations about what they are currently reading

Adults model positive reading identities by discussing books, recommending texts and demonstrating that reading is valuable for enjoyment, curiosity, knowledge and connection.

ERIC - Everyone Reading In Class

ERIC time - Everyone Reading In Class - provides protected time for reading within our school day.

During ERIC, pupils have the opportunity to become immersed in a book without every reading experience needing to result in a worksheet or written task.

This regular protected time helps pupils to build reading stamina, independence, concentration and habit.

It also sends an important message: at Harper Bell, reading is not simply something we practise because we have to - reading is something we value and enjoy.

ERIC, class story time, teacher recommendations, our wider Reading for Pleasure culture and Accelerated Reader work together to create an environment in which books are visible, talked about and celebrated.

Our Christian Ethos and Reading

Our approach to reading is underpinned by our Christian values. We believe that reading helps children to develop wisdom, knowledge, understanding and compassion.

As the Bible reminds us:

"The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple."
Psalm 119:130

Through reading, pupils encounter experiences beyond their own, consider important ideas and questions and grow in their ability to understand themselves, others and the wider world.

Our Commitment

Through a progressive, ambitious and responsive reading curriculum, we aim to ensure that every pupil:

• Learns to read accurately and fluently

• Builds secure knowledge progressively over time

• Develops rich vocabulary and increasingly sophisticated comprehension

• Has gaps identified and addressed quickly

• Reads increasingly challenging and ambitious texts

• Uses reading successfully to access learning across the curriculum

• Develops independence, stamina and confidence

• Sees themselves and their community reflected in literature

• Encounters cultures, perspectives and experiences beyond their own

• Develops a strong reading identity

• Experiences the joy of being read to

• Has regular protected opportunities to read independently

• And, above all, leaves Harper Bell wanting to continue reading

Our goal is not simply that pupils can read.

It is that they become knowledgeable, discerning and confident readers who understand the power, pleasure and possibility that reading brings.