Reading Recovery Curriculum

In the event of school closures, an ‘English Recovery Curriculum’ will be followed until children have ‘caught up’ in their learning. The following strategies will be used to ensure children recover from any missed learning time due to school:

As a Trust, we have streamlined the National Curriculum for English for all year groups (1-6). This has been undertaken to allow our schools and individual teaching staff to prioritise key objectives that must be rigorously taught to ensure children secure the most essential knowledge and skills by the end of the year - whilst also providing sufficient time for ‘catch-up’ and targeted provision based on the time children have been out of school due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Previous year’s objectives will also be considered when planning English lessons. The key objectives are to be the focal point of all planning for each year group and regular assessment (both formative and summative) will be based upon these. Those that have not been identified as ‘key’ can still be taught across the year at a teacher’s discretion but are ultimately based on the needs of the children in their class.

Baseline Assessments

On their return, all children in Year 1 will complete a diagnostic phonics assessment to allow staff to identify which children need intensive phonics catch-up.  

All children from Years 2 to 6 will complete the Summer PiXL Reading Assessment from their preceding year group unless discussions with prior teacher dictates an alternative year group (e.g. Children in Year 2 will complete the Year 1 Summer paper; children in Year 6 will complete the Year 5 Summer paper).  On its completion, teachers are to populate the data from the tests for each child into the PiXL Question-Level Analysis spreadsheet. This is a diagnostic teaching tool which allows teachers to identify collective and individual areas of both strength and weakness in order to inform planning and provision for their class.

• All children who are GREEN/BLUE according to your year group’s Combined Tracking Sheet are to complete the previous year group’s summer assessment. All children classified as YELLOW are to complete the year group preceding this (e.g. a GREEN/BLUE child starting Year 6 will complete the Year 5 summer assessment; a YELLOW child will complete the Year 4 assessment). The data from these assessments will determine the next steps for all children in conjunction with the Reading Recovery Flowchart.
• Children classed as RED following the assessments are working significantly below the expectations for their age and the Catch-up Premium should prioritise this group with bespoke, targeted interventions.
• Please see a copy of the ‘Reading Recovery Flowchart’ for a diagram of the details above.

Early Reading

All children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 are to continue to access the school's phonics provision which is based on the Letters and Sounds programme. Children will be grouped based on the outcome of their phonics assessment and will access a discrete phonics lesson everyday tailored to their specific needs/gaps in learning. Those children who require intensive 'catch-up' will have access to daily phonics intervention and 1:1/small group reading sessions. 

In Nursery and Reception we aim to ensure as many children as possible are secure in Phase 3 before beginning Year 1. In Year 1, whilst revisiting Phase 3, the primary focus is securing up to Phase 5. In Year 2 and Year 3 there may need to be a blended approach (based on the data from the baseline assessments), which prioritises securing word reading and phonic knowledge before reading fluency and comprehension. 

Teaching of Reading 

Opportunities for cross-curricular reading should be maintained.

EYFS - In addition to routine, rigorous daily phonics, children should continue to be exposed to a reading-rich curriculum.

Year 1 - Within Year 1, phonics is the primary focus with as many opportunities as possible to embed extra sessions. Targeted 1:1 reading is a key priority. A reading rich curriculum is vital and opportunities for oral discussion and questioning should take place often. Throughout the course of the year- and following conversations with leaders- formal written comprehension may begin.

Year 2 - Within Year 2, phonics may still be the primary focus. Phonics and spelling rules may need to be taught alongside each other as opposed to reading comprehension initially. Teacher discretion, alongside discussions with leaders, should be used to identify the appropriate time for pupils to participate in formal written comprehension lessons.  Targeted 1:1 reading alongside whole class reading is key.

Key stage 2 -  The children will be taught the key reading objectives identified with an initial focus on word reading and the decoding of a text. It is expected that children produce a minimum of 4 ‘cold’ comprehension tasks over the course of six weeks. There should be some form of daily reading comprehension, this can be either written or discussed orally. Targeted reading is vital for both individuals and small groups.

In Year 3, phonics and bridging bands may be required after initial assessments.

Reading Fluency and Stamina

Reading fluency and stamina are key elements of the English Recovery Curriculum. It is expected that all children will read 90 words per minute of an age appropriate text from Year 2 onwards. Based on their year group, the children are given a passage to read within a set amount of time.

By the end of each academic year, it is expected that:

• In Year 1 children will read 60 words of an age appropriate text in one minute.
• In Year 2 children will read 270 words of an age appropriate text in three minutes.
• In Year 3 children will read 270 words of an age appropriate text in three minutes.
• In Year 4 children will read 360 words of an age appropriate text in four minutes.
• In Year 5 children will read 450 words of an age appropriate text in five minutes.
• In Year 6 children will read extended texts at 120 words per minute (in line with end of KS2 testing).

To help them achieve this, all children in Years 1 to 6 are to complete a reading speed assessment at the start of the year. Children need to read the given passage for their year group with the class teacher/TA. If they achieve 90 words or more in a minute (60 words in Year 1), they do not need to be assessed further; if they achieve less than 90 words, they should be implicitly targeted with 1:1 reading on a regular and consistent basis. They will then need to be assessed for their reading stamina at the end of each half term.  Once they are reading at the age-appropriate speed, it is no longer compulsory whether they continue with this provision.