Reading

At Raynsford Academy we continue to promote the love of reading.

The Benefits Of Reading

To support the teaching of reading, the children use VIPERS.

What are Vipers?

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum.  They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

VIPERS stands for

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explanation

Retrieval

Sequence or Summarise

The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc.  As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and children are familiar with, a range of questions

Whole School VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 1 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 2 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 3 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 4 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 5 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

Year 6 VIPERS Reading Skills Progression

 Guided Reading

Each half term children will read a different book as a class during their guided reading lessons. 

The purpose of guided reading is for children to problem-solve and practice strategies using level-appropriate text. The goal for each child in a guided reading lesson is to apply the focus strategy to the process of reading the entire text, not just a page. It gives children the chance to apply the strategies they already know to a new text. This expands their understanding and approach to reading.

Guided reading helps children develop greater control over the reading process through the development of reading strategies which assist decoding and constructing meaning. The teacher guides their pupils as they read, talk and think their way through a text. 

The practice is based on the belief that the best way for children to learn is to be assisted by an educator, where they read and understand a text with helpful and clear but limited guidance. Children are guided towards learning things which they can't learn on their own.

Guided reading is an important part of literacy teaching, so it's essential to get it right and make the lessons as effective as possible. With effective guided reading, children can flourish and develop their reading skills in a range of ways. However, it can be difficult to get it right.

Whole School Guided Reading Spine

 100 Books

It is our aim to expose children to and give them the opportunity to read as many books as possible. We have created a list of 100 books that we recommend children should read by the time they leave primary school. 

Year 3 and Year 4 recommendations:

 Year 5 and Year 6 Recommendations