At Seal, we love reading!

We believe that reading is THE best skill that we can empower our children with. Reading IS the key to academic success, so it is our number one priority. 

Our aim is for every child to be able to read confidently, fluently and to access a wide range of texts.

Our Reading Culture

Our teachers are passionate about sharing their love of reading with our children. 

• Our classrooms reflect our passion by having inviting book corners, a wide selection of books and engaging reading displays. Adults read aloud daily to the children from a range of texts. 

• Children are rewarded with Catch Me Reading cards if they are spotted reading at playtimes and lunchtimes. When spotted, their name goes into a draw to win a book in our Friday assembly. 

• We also share our love of reading through whole school activities on World Book Day. The whole day is devoted to reading and book activities. This includes our annual Masked Reader event, which is loved by staff, pupils and parents. On this day, the children return to school in the evening for a bedtime story hour. 

• We also have our termly reading newsletter which also showcases our reading achievements in school as well as having pupil book recommendations and a teacher’s top three books. 

• We also aim for our pupils to meet authors either through virtual or in person visits. 

We expect families to read regularly with their children and make comments in their child’s reading diary. Every child will take home at least one reading book of an appropriate level every day. Our newsletters share ideas and tips for reading at home. For every ten times they read at home, children are rewarded with a gold sticker. Those who achieve 10 gold stickers in a term receive a special prize in our end of term assembly, where we find out which class has read the most at home. 

We teach reading through a variety of ways at Seal.

Daily Talk 4 Writing Reading lessons 

Every pupil across the school has daily reading lessons which are integrated with our Talk 4 Writing scheme. Each half term, individual year groups have a focus text for their unit of work. These texts link to their year group topics and are chosen for their rich vocabulary. Each year, every pupil will have explored in depth, six different texts from different authors. During their time with us, they will experience a wide range of authors from Charles Dickens to Maz Evans. 

Our daily Talk 4 Writing reading lessons teach the children a range of reading skills. The first is fluency, which is taught by using a range of strategies such as choral, echo, whisper and paired reading aloud. Vocabulary is another key element. Our children are taught new vocabulary across the curriculum. As part of our reading lessons, we explicitly teach the definition of new words, synonyms and antonyms before children use the new vocabulary in sentences. We also make learning vocabulary fun by playing different word games. Reading comprehension skills are also taught during whole class reading lessons. This includes skills such as retrieval, inference, understanding an author’s choice of punctuation and vocabulary or summarising what they have read so far. We have a whole class approach to teaching reading which generates high quality discussions with the teacher. This can be from their class text, an extract, a poem, image or video. We use a range of stimuli, both fiction and non-fiction, to engage the children in their learning. 

Accelerated Reader

In key stage 1 the children follow a structured phonics programme and then move onto the Accelerated Reader (AR) programme when they are ready. The majority of children are on AR from year three onwards.

Accelerated Reader is an internet based software programme that assesses reading ages and suggests books that match the pupil’s needs and interests. The children complete a STAR reading assessment each half term, which tells their teacher what level they are reading at.

Each child is then given a personalised reading target to work towards. AR reading takes place daily and the children read for a minimum of twenty minutes every day. This is sustained, silent reading, which helps to build their stamina for reading for longer periods of time. The children have a wide selection of books to choose from in each classroom and, once they have read their book, they take a computerised quiz which earns them their points.

Children who achieve their AR target are rewarded with a certificate. We also celebrate those children who manage to read over a million words each year. Their photograph is added to our Millionaire’s Row display in school. We have children who are double millionaires and some who are triple and even quadruple word millionaires! 

We love AR because:

• It gives children appropriately levelled books

• Develops sustained and independent reading skills

• Provides immediate and regular feedback to the children

• Allows teachers to make in depth and accurate assessments of their children’s reading and comprehension

• Motivates children to read independently and more frequently

• Helps to develop a love of reading