Reading at Thomas Buxton

At Thomas Buxton Primary we provide children with a rich and varied diet of reading activities, which include:

• Daily phonics lessons
• Daily shared reading
• Daily guided reading
• Story Time
• Debating
• Home reading
• Bug club
• Partnered reading
• Library skills
• World Book Day
• Author visits
• Reading across the curriculum

Phonics

Children are taught phonics through the Read Write Inc. Phonics scheme starting in Nursery up until Year 1. Children who have not passed the phonics screening check will continue the programme in Year 2.

To support parents and children we have recorded daily RWI sessions to help you and your children practise together at home. Please visit our YouTube channel for a full playlist.

Find out more about RWI at Thomas Buxton and how you can support your child at home:

Reading in KS1 and KS2

The teaching of reading at Thomas Buxton focuses on the six key VIPERS skills: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieve and summarise. Each week, children have a minimum of three reading lessons and an additional comprehension lesson. Each lesson explicitly focusses on one of the skills so the children should have a clear understanding of what this skill entails, why it is necessary and the language they should use.

The VIPERS questions and question stems will be used regularly by teachers to secure children with the critical language of reading, particularly for written outcomes. VIPERS skills are referred to when working in all areas of the curriculum and children should be using them in English, Science and Humanities.

For a more detailed guide to reading at Thomas Buxton:

Core Texts

At Thomas Buxton, we follow a book-based English curriculum. Here is a selection of some of the high-quality books we read at each Key Stage.

EYFS

KS1

Lower KS2

Upper KS2

Reading Events at Thomas Buxton

At Thomas Buxton, we love celebrating books!

We love celebrating reading, writing and listening to stories!

Each year we hold events across the whole school which herald the importance of great stories, great authors and great characters! This gives the whole Thomas Buxton community the chance to come together and share their love of reading. Over the past few years we've had, 'Booknics', Harry Potter nights, Reading Sleepovers, Roald Dahl Days and of course we've all dressed up as our favourite characters for World Book Day!

We are very lucky to work closely with the National Literacy Trust who help us run lots of our reading events in school.

Tower Hamlets Book Awards

We take part in The Tower Hamlets Book Awards each year! This year, we got to attend the finale at East Wintergarden! The children wrote, produced and directed a short script about the book, 'Wonderscape' by Jennifer Bell. They were delighted to meet the author and get their books signed!

Shakespeare Week

On a biennial basis, we hold our Shakespeare Week! It's a week where the children explore the world of Shakespeare and his inspiring comedies, tragedies and tragicomedies! Each year group reads, acts and analyses one of Shakespeare's plays and creates some writing based on the story they have read. We are lucky enough to work with the Young Shakespeare Company during each Shakespeare Week - they immerse the children in each play and help turn our children into actors!

We consider nurturing children's love of books and reading as one of the key drivers of our curriculum at Thomas Buxton.

The Library at Thomas Buxton

We love reading at Thomas Buxton and we cherish the opportunity to use the library on a weekly basis. Each child gets a unique lending code which enables them to borrow from a wide range of books that we carry in the library. We are very lucky to have a trained librarian who works for the Tower Hamlets Library Service. Janet visits our school every Wednesday and teaches Library Skills to one year group each half-term. This is an invaluable experience for the children and one that they thoroughly enjoy! The library is a calm, quiet space where our children can relax and go on a journey with their stories...

For further information about Reading at Thomas Buxton, please contact Saira Bano (English Lead).