Excalibur Primary SchoolReading at Excalibur
"I love getting to read on the reading bus."
"I love reading, it's a good way to entertain yourself and it's fun."
"I love reading because it takes my imagination away."
"I like the range of books we can read like football books, stories and magazines."
"I am loving reading Carrie's War in English."
"I love how we get to read every day."
"Our teacher helps us a lot with our reading if we find it tricky."
Reading for Pleasure
A love of reading is at the heart of life at Excalibur Primary School. From pre-school, children's learning is planned around high-quality texts and they enjoy a class story daily. Children at Excalibur are also given lots of inspiring opportunities to choose to read in the exciting reading bus, the welcoming school library as well as in cosy class book areas.
Children are supported to read for pleasure by their drive to climb the Accelerated Reader mountain.
Reception and Year 1
In Reception and Year 1, we use the Read, Write, Inc. phonics programme to support children to read with accuracy and confidence as well as developing their love for reading. For more information about this approach, please visit our Phonics page.
Year 2
In Year 2, upon completion of the Read, Write, Inc. phonics programme, children have the opportunity to choose Accelerated Reader books to enjoy. They also begin to share whole class reading lessons, exploring stories, poetry and non-fiction books. Year 2 children participate in discussions about books and they explain their understanding of them. Year 2 will be exploring the following texts during their whole class reading lessons:
Year 3
In Year 3, children develop their enjoyment and understanding of texts including stories, poetry, plays and non-fiction books. They begin to predict, draw inferences, ask questions, summarise main ideas, explain presentation choices and retrieve and record information. Year 3 will be enjoying the following books in their whole class reading lessons:
Year 4
In Year 4, the children will practise and develop the key reading skills that they learned during Year 3. They will do this through exploring the following books in whole class reading lessons:
Year 5
In Year 5, children will build upon the key reading skills learned in Key Stage 1 and Lower Key Stage 2. They will begin to evaluate authors' use of language, distinguish between fact and fiction, retrieve, record and present information, build on and challenge others' views on texts and provide reasoned justifications for their views. They will learn, practise and apply these skills in whole class reading lessons, looking at the following texts:
Year 6
In Year 6, as well as additional reading comprehension work in preparation for SATs, the children will explore the following books in their whole class reading lessons, developing the key skills that they learned in Year 5:
Year 6 children also have the opportunity to become bus librarians. As part of this role, they can buddy up with younger children to share books they love.
Everyone at Excalibur School wants to foster and enhance our pupils’ attitude to reading. We have now introduced Accelerated Reader which helps motivate children to read and understand what they read independently. A lot of children can read the words but they are not able to recollect or comprehend what they had read. This system will help with all of these things and help them to choose books that are at a suitable level for them.
For detailed information on how Accelerated Reader works there is a Parent leaflet that can be downloaded below.
Parents Logging onto Accelerated Reader
Parents are able to log onto Accelerated reader from home using the link below.
https://ukhosted45.renlearn.co.uk/2248187/HomeConnect/
If you click on the link above and simply enter your child’s username and password (all children should know this or it can be found in your child's planner) and you will be able to:
review results on AR quizzes taken in school
view the number of books read, words read and quizzes passed
see a virtual bookshelf showing the books your child has read
You will also see a link to ‘E-Mail Setup’ at the top of the page that gives you the chance to sign up to recieve an e-mail every time your child takes a quiz to share the results with you instantly!
Reading books from home or the library
If you have a book from home or the local library that you would like to read then please use the link below to see if it is on A.R:
Type in the title of your book, e.g. ‘Matilda’ and search. If it is there you will see the front cover of the book and information beside it. Look for the BL number – this is the Book Level.
Matilda is 5.0, so for someone who has a range of 4.1 – 6.0 this book would be at their level.
Please remember a book doesn’t always have to be within your level! You can challenge yourself and try it independently, read it with someone or have someone read it to you.