At Airedale Infant Academy, reading is at the heart of everything we do. We want to foster a lifelong love of reading by exposing our children to various literature across all curriculum areas. We believe reading opens a new world for children and gives them the opportunity to explore new ideas, visit new places, meet new characters and develop a better understanding of other cultures.

Through building up the children’s vocabulary, it gives them the word power they need to become successful speakers and writers as well as confident readers. Reading is a key life skill, and we strive to embed a culture of reading into the core of what we do. We provide opportunities for children to read both independently and aloud, as well as allowing them the chance to discuss and recommend books they have read to their peers. Reading quality literature is implicitly interwoven into our curriculum using key texts to expose our children to various genres as well as famous authors to enhance the variety of exciting topics that we teach.

At Airedale Junior Academy, our reading curriculum provides all pupils with:

• Daily reading lessons
• Books directly matched to their reading ability (phonics or free choice reading)
• Daily story times
• Opportunities to visit the local library
• Opportunities to visit the school library and borrow a book of their choice
• A range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry books

How is reading taught progressively?

Children begin their reading journey in EYFS with a focus on listening and attention skills before moving onto the Read Write Inc. programme in Summer term of Nursery or upon entry to Reception. All children on the Read Write Inc programme are regularly assessed, re-grouped and challenged to develop their phonics knowledge and to apply this independently to read books directly matched to their level.

When children have acquired their phonics skills and can fluently and accurately read a range of fiction and non-fiction books, children are then progressed to Reading Cycles. During daily teaching of reading, children are taught the skills of how to comprehend and answer a range of questions related to age-appropriate texts.

Phonics: Read Write Inc

At Airedale Infant and Junior Academy, we use ‘Read Write Inc.’ to teach our children how to read.

During Read Write Inc. the children will:

• learn their set 1, 2 and 3 sounds to read and spell
• learn to read words using skills such as Fred Talk, Fred in your head or speedy reading
• read a range of stories and non-fiction texts 
• show that they comprehend the texts by answering a range of questions

We follow Read Write Inc with fidelity and pupils will access lessons based upon their current knowledge.

Reading Cycles 

Year 1 and 2:

When pupils have completed the Phonics programme, they progress onto Reading Cycles which follows the cycle as shown below to guide our teachers to ensure all pupils are taught the necessary skills to comprehend the texts they are reading.

Please find our Reading Policy for Airedale Infant Academy below: