English Reading

At Westfield Junior School, we believe that every child has the right to learn to read and become a confident, competent reader. Our aim is for all children to develop a love of reading.  We continually promote enjoyment through the creative use of high quality texts and a wide range of engaging activities. Through the books we choose to read in school and the texts we recommend children read outside of school, we ensure that children are able to access a diverse range of characters and stories that provide windows to the lives and experiences of others and ones that reflect their own life experiences.

All staff aim to be reading role models in the way that they discuss and promote books as well as modelling reading for pleasure.  They make careful selections both in the text that they choose to use in the teaching of English and in those that they read aloud to pupils. Children are read aloud to frequently.  This not only allows them to encounter more demanding texts in a safe environment but also aids their vocabulary growth. 

All pupils have opportunities for shared reading and independent reading in a week alongside working together in guided groups or as a whole class on detailed explorations of whole books and shorter texts. 

Teaching and learning of Reading

At Westfield Junior School, reading is taught through shared and guided reading sessions. Year 3 are also taught phonics lessons. All pupils have opportunities to practise and consolidate skills through independent reading. Teachers are following a Leicestershire Local Authority Reading Comprehension project which has been shared with teachers through staff meetings and is guided by research in Leicester City schools. This project is based on teachers modelling skills required to be good readers and giving opportunities for pupils to apply these skills alongside the National Curriculum aims. Through both shared and guided reading sessions, teachers will assess pupil learning and understanding and use this to inform next steps. Texts that are used during all reading sessions should be pitched appropriately to the needs of pupils. During reading sessions, teachers/teaching assistants will use a wide range of strategies to enhance the teaching of reading. 

Here are the key skills we focus on during our reading lessons:

Meet Darcie - our Reading Dog

Darcie visits our school on Monday mornings to listen to our wonderful children read, and on Wednesday afternoons to see our pupils who attend The Meadows specialist provision.

Our Library

We aim to inspire!

The children loved meeting with the award-winning Hannah Gold. Hannah’s book ‘The Last Bear’ was a bestselling debut hardback when released and The Times Children’s Book of the Week, winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award! Children read this book when in year 4. Since her visit, many children have been inspired to read her captivating books, there was a lot of excitement around the school.

Hannah held a talk for years 3, 4, 5 and 6 and year 4 took part in a workshop where they created their own animal story, inspired by Hannah’s own writing. Hannah was very impressed with the children at Westfield Juniors and their enthusiasm, passion and love of reading. We are very proud of them too!

Reading Ambassadors

Our school reading ambassadors play an important role in fostering a love of reading and motivating others to engage with books. After having a discussion with their classmates about their favourite genres and topics, the reading ambassadors worked together to help order new books for their class reading boxes. This collaborative effort allowed them to share ideas and express their reading interests. Within these boxes are a wide range of exciting new texts for the children to read.
They also helped to introduced the new reading reward scheme to their classes.

To help build a daily reading habit we are introducing a new reward system. Children will be rewarded for the number of reads recorded in their reading record. Here are the totals to achieve each award:

Bronze: 50 reads
Silver: 100 reads
Gold: 150 reads
Platinum: 250 reads

In addition to this, each half term the class teachers will award a child ‘Book worm of the half term’. This will be a child who has tried hard or has really improved their reading. These children will receive certificates, a bookmark and a reading party in the library at the end of term.

Many children received the new Blue Peter Book badge, designed by Sir Quentin Blake!

We had over 70 children apply and receive their Blue Peter badge through school! It has been a pleasure to hear so many children talking enthusiastically about reading. To earn the badge, children had to share their love of books and answer questions about their favourite one.