Reading

At Hampton Primary School, our aim is to inspire a love of reading in every one of our pupils by providing a stimulating, high-quality reading curriculum alongside a range of opportunities for children to read for pleasure. Throughout the school, children are exposed to a wide range of carefully selected texts including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Reading skills are taught through a mixture of whole class, independent and group reading activities. Teachers also read aloud to children regularly to promote and model the enjoyment of reading and also to ensure that pupils of all abilities can access high-quality literature.

Reading Records

At Hampton, each pupil has their own individual Reading Record book. Pupils are encouraged to bring this to school every day and take this home when school finishes so any reading that takes place at home can be logged. Alongside this, Class teachers also record children’s reading at school in Reading Records so that each child’s reading can be monitored closely. Children are encouraged to read their school reading book (further details about reading books is below) at home and log this in their Reading Records alongside any other reading that takes place at home too. This could also be a book read to a child by an adult or a child reading a book of their own to an adult or independently.

Book Band Reading Scheme/Rhino Readers phonics books

In EYFS and KS1 children will bring home books which are closely linked to the sounds they have been taught in their phonics lessons. Rhino Readers books have been carefully created inline with our Twinkl Phonics scheme and perfectly support children to learn to read. These high quality texts ensure children are confident in applying their phonics knowledge to read books where they can develop a high level of fluency and understanding. 

At the beginning of FS, children will be provided with Level 1 Rhino Reader books which will be books to share with parents and carers to expose children to high quality texts linking in to skills developed in Level 1. When the children have been taught some of the sounds in Level 2 in their daily phonics sessions, they will begin to bring home Rhino Reader level 2 books. This will continue throughout FS and KS1 (and beyond if needed) using assessment to ensure children progress through the Rhino Reader books with a high level of confidence.

The children will also have a coloured book band book from our school's book band scheme.  Children are encouraged to read books from their book band and bring them back to school to change them. Teachers will change children’s book bands based on their own assessment and this is recorded in Reading Records as a way of communicating this to parents. Books on the book band scheme are specifically aimed at developing decoding strategies as well as early comprehension skills.

Accelerated Reader Scheme

When children reach a PURPLE level bookband they will be identified by their class teacher as being ready to complete a STAR Reader Assessment on our school’s Accelerated Reading Scheme. Children complete this assessment on a computer or tablet and a ‘Reading Range’ is generated closely matched to the child’s reading ability and comprehension skills. Reading Ranges are in the form of numbers starting from 0.1 upwards, going up in 0.1 intervals. Children are encouraged to choose a book from their specific reading range. Once children have read their chosen book they are invited to ‘quiz’ on their book using our Reading tablets. A score in the form of a percentage is given at the end of the quiz and this is recorded in pupil’s reading records. Children are then invited to choose another book from their reading range. Four times per year, children are reassessed on the STAR Reader Assessment and their reading ranges will be amended should this be necessary. Reading ranges can go up if a child is making progress on the Accelerated Reader Scheme but can also be readjusted lower if necessary to allow children to secure their skills on more accessible texts. Accelerated Reader is primarily aimed at improving reading comprehension skills.

Click on the links below to find out more about our Reading curriculum at Hampton Primary School.