At Golborne & Maxilla, we ensure that our approach to early reading is accessible to all learners regardless of background. We are committed to giving our children the best possible start to their life, through education. “A child who reads will be an adult who thinks.”

INTENT

To engage children in their learning through their own interests. Practitioners use these identified interests to tailor active and creative learning experiences to develop children’s listening and attention skills.

To provide an environment that is rich in positive interactions between adults and children through rhymes, music, songs, books, pictures, signs, symbols, notices, numbers, and words that consider children’s different interests, understandings, home backgrounds and cultures.

To incorporate time and relaxed opportunities within the school day for children to develop spoken language through sustained conversations and activities between both peers and adults. These conversations could be one-to-one, in small groups or between the children themselves. We ensure children are given time to initiate conversations and we respect their thinking time and silences to help them develop interactions.

COMPREHENSION

At Golborne & Maxilla, we believe reading is a crucial life skill. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose. By the time children leave us, our aim is that they will be able to confidently enjoy books and reading for meaning and pleasure.

IMPLEMENTATION

1.  Story time/ Whole group time Staff sharing books, reading stories, poems, singing songs, rhymes and telling stories to the children daily, demonstrating the use of language for reading and communicating (Back and forth interactions). Focusing on key stories texts and key words which feed into all story groups.
2.  Reading corners Frequent exposure to books and extensive occasions to use and embed new words. Our children being able to use and embed literacy across each curriculum area.
3. Book loan Children can select a book of their choice to enjoy at home with their parent or carer. This provides an excellent opportunity for staff and parents to help children understand how books and texts work. Books are available in various languages.
4. Guided Reading We read to/with children every day, modelling reading skills such as turning one page at a time, talking about the author and illustrators, following the print with their fingers etc. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures. We will continually review our core books and their relevance to our curriculum and cohort.

 

 

5. Adult-Led activities Develop children’s phonological awareness, particularly through rhyme and alliteration and their knowledge of the alphabetic code. This is carried out in our focused activities, little group times and a specific topic related song of the week which is also distributed to parents.

This is implemented through:

• Discrimination of sounds: environmental, instrumental and body percussion.
• Rhythm and Rhyme
• Alliteration Voice sounds
• Oral blending and segmenting

6. Sound of the week We set a ‘Sound of the week’ to further supplement early phonological awareness. We ask children to bring in an object beginning with the weeks’ ‘sound.’ By engaging parents in this activity, we encourage discussions to flourish in the home. The sound of the week is shared with parents on the bi-weekly newsletter.

7. Mark making Staff to ensure that they regularly write in front of the children, in all areas of the nursery environment and children are encouraged to mark make in all areas both inside and outside.

INCLUSION FOR ALL

All children have equal access to the curriculum as expressed in our Equal Opportunities Policy. We will ensure that reading is accessible to pupils by:

• Setting suitable learning activities
• Responding to the variety of learning styles
• Overcoming potential barriers for individuals or within groups

 

Supporting all our Children’s Needs Provision will be made to meet the individual requirements of children with any additional needs, to enable them to make progress in Literacy and achieve their full potential, e.g. through specific targets as part of an Individual Support Plan.

Staff will liaise and work closely with other professionals such as Speech & Language therapists, Braille specialists or other specialist advisory teachers, involved with the child and respond to the advice they offer.

Multisensory learning opportunities Simultaneous visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities involving, for example, physical movement to represent letter shapes and sounds (Makaton signs), manipulate magnetic letters, electronic devices, and pictures etc.

Enrichment activities To deepen the love for reading for those children who are more confident in linking sounds to letters and who are at the early stages of reading. We challenge their learning through the introduction of more appropriate learning opportunities, both indoors and outdoors.

REVIEW

Policy reviewed by Ruth Davis on 15th January 2025.

This Policy was agreed and adopted by the Curriculum & Achievement Committee of Golborne & Maxilla Nursery School on 21^st January 2025.