Introducing Our New Reading Scheme

Why have we changed our Reading Scheme? Change in Government expectations; Old-fashioned books from different schemes; Big Cats are bright and modern with a wide-range of fiction and non-fiction on different themes; To improve standards of reading.

Big Cat Books/Changes Are colour-banded (not numbered); Stages Pink-Blue, have Phonics books as well as repetitive language books; Meet the requirements of the new National Curriculum so are trickier than our previous books; Have comprehension tasks for the children and key questions for adults; Come with important assessment tools for teachers.

How will we run the new system? School adults and children to select books; Less reading scheme books to be given over the week (3 maximum); More time to be spent on each book/completing comprehension tasks. Other books from the class story-box to be taken home (can be recorded in reading record); Bookmark/certificate system will stay the same; Children to be assessed using a running record to check reading accuracy.

The Simple View of Reading Year One Phonics Screening Check tests a child’s ability to use their Phonics sounds to work out /decode new/fake words. Year Two SATs test the children’s ability to understand/comprehend a text; Both have equal importance so we wanted a reading scheme that would support both aspects of reading.

Hearing your child read at home Key questions at back of book: before/during/after; Complete comprehension tasks e.g. Retell the story from the pictures, etc.

Hearing your child read at home Link to own experience; Guess what might happen next; Choose favourite/least favourite characters; Use different voices when reading speech; Share opinions on the book; Look at special features e.g. Bold writing, speech bubbles, subtitles, etc. Retell the story. Think of other words that could have been used.

Questions Important Final Note: Thanks to Elmtree Friends and Family for raising the money to buy extra books and for putting stickers inside each one of them!