Whole Class Reading at Salesbury 

After much thought, reading and research, we have decided to develop Whole Class Reading so we can provide a coherent and cumulative reading curriculum, with lots of rich reading and opportunities for high order questioning and good quality talk.  In order for our pupils to develop their understanding of the key reading skills, we believe it is important to teach, model and guide them through the reading competencies.  

From encouraging children to read and access rich texts, they will begin to widen their vocabulary and make connections to things they know, texts they may have read previously and the wider world.     

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Our Whole Class Reading lessons are carefully planned to ensure children have opportunities to revisit prior learning and reflect upon what they read previously, before having opportunities to read together.  This can take the form of teacher-led reading, choral reading, round robin style reading, paired reading and repeated reading. Teachers and Teaching Assistants use this time to model fluency and expert reading, assess pupils' reading skill and listen to individual pupils read aloud  so they can practise their fluency. 

Following the reading session, there are opportunities for children to answer high order questions, before a key skill is taught and modelled to pupils.  They are then given time to practise this skill through lots of active comprehension tasks.  Each lesson ends with a summary so that learning can be brought back together and discussions can be held with the class, in pairs or in groups.