Reading in the Early Years

Reading is a key focus for St Gregory and St Patricks School and that is why we feel it is essential that children, even in our Pre-Nursery Setting, are given an opportunity to share stories at home and develop a deep love of reading. 

Pre-Nursery:

In Pre Nursery our children have a specially selected "reading spine" consisting of 15 books we feel will help build on both children's vocab and interest in books. this set of books are shared regularly within the setting, in 1:1 reading session or whole setting story times. Within the setting children have access to a book area and quiet room where books can be shared. 

families are encouraged to take home our "story sacks" which are available at the entrance to Pre-Nursery alongside a "take home to keep" bookshelf, offering families a range of stories that they can share at home time and time again.

We love an opportunity to visit the Library van to change our books and listen to a story read by the librarian 

Nursery

Nursery have their own book spine, which we feel builds on the stories shared in Pre-Nursery. 

Alongside these books staff share regular stories on a daily basis, linking to current topics. We share the same story over a weekly period in order to give children time to get to now a text well, s they are confident talking about the story and resaying the story using some of the vocabulary they have heard.  

children take home a book bag with them each week. these story books are either linked to language or mathematics. In each bag we have sent home activity ideas that families may wish to carry out at home together.

As soon as our children start in Nursery we have regular slots throughout the week where children complete some "getting ready for reading" tasks, in small groups. These activities include listening, environmental sounds and rhyme.

In our summer term, for those children transitioning into Reception in September we are introducing set 1 sounds following the Read Write Inc Programme. Children are learning to recognise and write sounds.

We have recently been using "helicopter stories" to give children an opportunity to create their own story and share it in a group, this then leads onto acting out the story with their peers. Children are encouraged to think about character, setting, problem and solution. We have had some super story telling so far! 

children have regular visits to the school library in small focused groups. We are also lucky to have made good links with the local library where the librarian will now come into school to share stories in small groups. We also receive book boxes from the library each term linked to our topics. 

Reception

In Reception we try to start reading and phonics the moment our children join us in September, at first until we assess children's sound knowledge, this is carried out as full class revamp of sounds and Fred talk. within the first two weeks we put children into smaller groups for our 20minuite daily phonics sessions, following the Read Write Inc programme. Children receive their first "share at home story" from week 1, this then gets adds to as children progress through phonics, some will start to take home some sound sheets and then moving onto reading books. 

As the year progresses the time spent in our phonics groups increase as we introduce reading into the sessions. 

Reception also have their own Reading pine which we read and re-read often i order for children to know these texts inside out.

In addition linked to our half term topic we share a book which we will focus on for a fortnight, usually following the process of Talk 4 Writing, so children can gain confidence knowing the text and then adapt the texts to create a new story as the sessions go on. 

Reception children are also using helicopter stories, building on learning that has taken place in Nursery. We encourage children to draw or write their own parts before sharing with the class. 

All children within Reception have access to a book area, library book box and "favourite read " box. 

To promote the use of our local library we have termly trips to the library linked to our current topics, children are collected from the library to give parents time to browse books and to join the library if they wish to. Additionally we regularly visit the school library in order to look at a wide range of different books and topics. 

We love having a special "mystery reader" who comes into class to share a book, we have tried to encourage parent readers, especially male family member as we acknowledge in school children see lots of female readers! 

Each Wednesday Reception attend a reading assemble with the rest of Key Stage 1. Each week has a different theme and it is an opportunity to hear a new text, talk about the books and learn new vocabulary, each class then takes a book back to class linked with that theme. 

Take a look at our key texts for each year groups reading spine...

Our Indoor and Outdoor Provision

In all of our Early Years settings we ensure children have access to a range of continuous provision areas.

As  children spend almost 4 years within our Early Years provision, we are keen to ensure that each setting provides a range of resources for our pupils so they can build on previous learned skills as they move from Pre- Nursery, to Nursery, to Reception.

In order to ensure this happens we have planned each area and the resources we expect to see. 

Assessment within Early Years 

Pre-Nursery: We follow the same assessment and observation cycle as Nursery, however we also complete a 2 year progress check for all children, which is then also shared with the parents and Health Visitor.

Nursery: Ongoing assessment is an essential part of the learning and development processes. All children will have a baseline assessment when they start Nursery. Staff use observational assessment to continually identify children’s achievements, interests and learning experiences. These observations are shared with the parents and/or carers and are used to identify children’s next steps. We also take into account observations shared by parents and/or carers through the online learning journey Learning Book.

Reception: Through careful assessments and observations, including information provided by parents and other settings, children’s development levels are assessed. On entry to school all children will have a Baseline Assessment. During this Baseline assessment the children’s levels of well-being and involvement are assessed alongside levels for Personal Social and Emotional Development Communication Language and Literacy, Reading, Writing, Number and Space Shape and Measure. All assessments are undertaken through observation. This Baseline assessment will inform future planning for each child and help to monitor individual progress. We also complete an end of year assessment: assessing children against the End of Year Early Learning Goals: we assess whether children are expected, exceeding or emerging. This is reported to parents in our school reports. These assessments are based on what children can complete independently without adult support.