Comprehension Strategy
School has always taught comprehension alongside all other strands of reading. At present, despite gains in phonics outcomes, reading assessment outcomes at end of key stage and in all year groups are still not good enough. Children can read but they can’t comprehend to the same level. End of key stage assessment always indicates that children can’t read the test texts fast enough despite the majority having reached the desired speed of 90 words per minute to complete RWI Grey group.
Therefore, school needs to develop a systematic approach to teaching comprehension skills and fluency in reading beyond the phonics programme. The system needs to be less reliant on repeated practice and exposure to text to gain improvement and move to a model of repeated and consistent direct teaching of reading skills with accurately pitched practice for fluency and question response.
Analysis of content domain indicates that retrieval, vocabulary and inference far out way prediction and summary in importance for assessment and therefore the weighting of teaching and question practice will reflect this in all lessons. Vocabulary will be a constant in all lessons. Questions for children who have just finished RWI will be weighted towards retrieval. Secure retrieval skills are the next step. Inference questions will be phased in as children move through the system.
Secure reading skills from RWI enable children to develop secure retrieval skills in comprehension which enable children to infer meaning from what they have retrieved.
The comprehension lesson is 30 minutes long and takes place 3 times a week at the same time that KS1 are doing phonics. This enables children to be mixed in to ability groups at whole school level. The existing frequency of shared reading which covers all VIPERS and is aimed at enjoyment and engagement is maintained, independent reading through AR Time and daily teacher reading is maintained.