Home Reading
| OUR MISSION |
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"The Beacon Hill School community is a safe, caring and stimulating environment where everyone is respected and valued. The children will have every opportunity to achieve in all aspects of school life and they will understand their responsibility as global citizens." |
We believe reading is an essential life skill. The pursuit of regular reading results in enjoyment, entertainment, escapism, education and enables empathy.
We agree that home reading is an opportunity to practise essential reading skills including:
· fluency
· questioning
· visualising
· enrichment of vocabulary
· use of background knowledge
· retelling
We agree that success in home reading results from a partnership between students, parents and teachers and if done well it will be an enjoyable and rewarding experience for all.
This document outlines the procedure for the Home Reading Programme involving the levelled readers, including library band readers. It does NOT relate to the Learning Centre books that students borrow according to personal interest.
Frequency of borrowing
We agree that students will choose a book from their teacher directed level. Those who are reading shorter levelled texts will tend to change books more frequently, for example in Year 1 and 2 this may be daily. Students who are reading more challenging books may keep them for a longer period of time.
We agree that if a student is not enjoying what they are reading they may change their book without completion, provided that they show evidence of reasoned reflection.
Matching the text to the student
We agree that PM and Prose Non-Fiction Benchmarking will be carried out as outlined on the assessment calendar for children who are reading levelled texts. We agree that professional judgment (classroom observation, performance in guided reading, informal miscue and other formal benchmarking) will be used at other times of the year to set targets and monitor progress.
We agree that the book taken home from school will be at a level that the child can read comfortably. This level will be written in the home reading diary.
Teacher feedback
Teachers agree to acknowledge parent’s reflections on their child’s reading and comment at least once a week. Oral feedback may also be given to the child on their parent’s comment.
Year 6 teachers agree to acknowledge student’s reflections in Reading Journals weekly.
Parent feedback
Parents will comment positively on the progress their child has made towards their child’s reading targets. They will be reminded to do so at parent teacher meetings, via an introductory letter to home reading and notes in the reading diary.
Target setting
We agree that target setting is an important part of home reading as it gives students ownership of their learning, informs parents and promotes success. Targets will be given that are related to the six areas identified above as skills which can be practised during home reading. We agree that students will be given a manageable number of targets to focus on at any one time and targets will be specific and worded in child friendly language. We agree that a student’s targets will be shared in the home reading diary.
