Reading

The more you read, the more you will know, the more you learn, the more you will grow.

- Dr Seuss

At Clapgate, we want to promote a love of reading and ensure that our children have the skills and desire to become life long readers.

We understand the importance of reading in the wider world and want to ensure that our children have the resilience and independence to continue their reading journey throughout their education. We provide our children with rich opportunities to engage in high quality texts and to talk about their favourite books and poems.


Pupils at Clapgate view reading as a skill which will allow them to uncover new facts and stories. They know that reading will help them throughout their life so they are enthused to improve. Pupils are encouraged to respond creatively to texts in a variety of ways such as drama, art and performance. In order for our pupils to become confident, independent and fluent readers, our curriculum: 

  • Starts with phonological awareness in Nursery and a follows a systematic phonics scheme (Read, Write, Inc.) in Reception and KS1
  • Includes a reading spine of texts that all children will have read during their time at Clapgate 
  • Is creative, active and full of speaking and listening opportunities
  • Focuses on fluency
  • Is rich in texts and vocabulary, including modelled reading sessions and a range of question types
  • Priorities class novels and reading for pleasure
  • Includes a regular poetry focus that contains a performance element
  • Is designed to encourage pupils to debate their opinions about texts
  • Is responsive to the needs of each pupil
  • Is differentiated through guided reading, questions, resources and teacher/TA support
  • Is designed to foster a culture of respect for each other where mistakes are celebrate and welcomed as opportunities for deeper learning
  • Includes a weekly book club in which children and staff can share their joy of reading through recommending books to others
  • Covers the full range of writing expectations including grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting
  • Includes one to one reading time for all pupils

Overview of Subject Approach 

Please see the document below which clearly outlines our reading approach teaching at Clapgate. 

Early Reading
Reading at Clapgate

Learner Profile of a Reader

Here you will find our learner profiles for Reading at Clapgate.

This shows how our children show our key values within school. We have separated this into Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, to show the development in reading and how the focus shifts within the interaction of the subject.

Our Reading Spine

Our reading spine is designed using books – written by inspirational authors – which we value and want the children to have read by the time they leave primary education. The texts are purposefully selected to take the reader on a journey, from sharing picture books to sharing a range of chapter books that gradually expose the reader to beautifully crafted storylines with evermore intriguing and challenging themes. Some books also fit the year group’s history, geography and science topics.

Research shows that sharing quality narratives, which the children would not necessarily choose to read for themselves, develops not only a love of reading but also improves vocabulary development and language skills, develops imagination and empathy, and enables children to learn about people, places and events outside of their own experience. In turn, this promotes achievement in all writing genres across the curriculum.

The books should be kept in the class library and available in the classroom. Children should be read to each day from the half-termly text indicated on the reading spine. One reading lesson a week should be replaced with a poem from the year group poetry anthology for KS2. One story a week should be replaced with a poem from the year group poetry anthology for EYFS and KS1.

Additional Information

We have returned to using our yellow reading logs, for children and families to log their reading at home and school. These will stay in Book Bags that will come to school every Thursday and return on Friday.

In every classroom each week, one child will bring home our snuggle-up with a book box or suitcase. These boxes are to promote reading at home. Each box contains biscuits, hot chocolate, and a book to encourage the family to snuggle up together and enjoy reading a book.

We have launched a new library system within school that allows children to interact with our school library from home. Here, children can have a look at what the school has in the library, send us recommendations of what they would like to read, leave reviews, watch videos by authors and find other books to read.

Our school library will be open on a Monday and Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. and a Tuesday afternoon at 3:20 p.m. for families to visit. 

In returning back to school, we would also love to focus on the pleasure of reading. Encourage children to read at home, and make it fun for them to read in different ways to engage them. Here is a bingo card you could use:

Reading BingoDownload
Useful Links
School Address:

Clapgate Primary School
10 Cranmore Drive
Belle Isle
Leeds
LS10 4AW

School Contacts:

Headteacher: Mrs Singleton
Deputy Headteacher: Miss Taylor
SENDCO: Mrs Lawton
Office: Mrs Austin, Miss Johnson, Mrs Belt and Miss Stamp
Chair of Governors: Mr Bache

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Tel: 0113 271 6700
Email: clapgate@clapgateprimaryschool.org

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