Reading at Horizon

Reading is a rich, fundamental part of life at Horizon Primary Academy - the whole commnuity know it always comes first!

We believe in developing a true love and passion for reading, as well as ensuring that all children become fluent readers during their time with us.

It is our aim that all children are fluent readers by the time they leave key stage 1.

Our Reading Environments

At Horizon, we like to make reading a special time and to help with this we create stimulating and inviting reading environments for the children. 

To do this, we set high standards for the quality of our class reading corners and have developed a fabulous school library for all of the children to enjoy.

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Developing a Love of Reading

As a school, we keep our finger on the pulse with reading books and continue to purchase new books to keep the children's interest alive.

We celebrate reading in lots of ways to build motivation:

  • Weekly 'Reader of the Week' winners - children receive a certificate, school book mark and a book to keep from our reading vending machine
  • Word millionaires - if children read one million words within a school year, they can earn a special certificate and book voucher
  • Word count top ten - the weekly top ten readers are shared across the school to acknowledge those that are reading and motivate those that could do more
  • Club 85 - this is a special club to be in, meaning that a child has an average Accelerated Reader test score of 85% or more.

Our Reading Continuum

At Horizon, we recognise that reading skills and a love of reading develop over time. Our reading continuum carefully structures the acquisition of skills across the school to ensure that children leave primary school with the reading skills required to access learning at secondary school and beyond. 

This continuum is sequenced into 3 stages:

  • Phonics
  • Fluency
  • Comprehension

Click here to view a summary of our reading continuum.

Prior Knowledge

It is important that children activate their prior knowledge about a text they are about to study. This may be something to do with the historical context of the story, the place that it is set in, other books by the author and many other things. Teachers plan core text hook lessons to ensure that the children have opportunities to activate their prior learning. 

We use our new book helper to structure this for the children.

Click here to view our new book helper

Vocabulary

At Horizon, we view vocabulary as one of the most fundamental part of learning: having a rich vocabulary to hand and understanding the meaning of any new words you come across is vital to building new knowledge. In reading, this is particularly vital. We therefore address new vocabulary every day and give children the skills to explore new vocabulary whenver they are reading a new book.

We have developed vocabulary helpers,which the children interact with every day at school. 

Click here to view the key stage 1 vocabulary helper

Click here to view the key stage 2 vocabulary helper

 

Reading Schemes

Click here to view details about the schemes that we use at Horizon