Curriculum Documents

Click on the page below to explore our additional curriculum documents for reading.

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Reading & Phonics

Big Cat Collins Reading Scheme

From early phonic development to fluent reading, Big Cat Collins is a whole-school programme that provides complete support for primary reading which is used from EYFS to Key Stage 2. The banded books are matched to children’s reading ages and phonics knowledge. Reading aloud of banded books supplements taught guided reading sessions which take place twice a week.

As pupils progress through the colour bands, they build their reading stamina and high-order comprehension skills as the text and vocabulary become more complex, resulting in fluency in reading.

Big Cat Collins - Book Bands

Reading Spines

Our Reading Spine is list of standout books that we believe children should be exposed to, to help them develop their reading and writing, but most importantly, cultivate a love for reading!

We used Pie Corbett’s Reading Spine (the guru of Talk for Writing) as a base list of books. We then worked together as a teaching team to select key texts which we have used, to successfully teach different key components of reading and writing. They may be fantastic at character descriptions; paint beautiful settings in our mind; support the development of expression; inspire our imaginations; or are reads that we love and decided simply couldn’t be missed.

Each classroom has a copy of our Book Spine texts and these are shared with the children throughout the year. When appropriate, we use books from our reading spine to support our writing lessons using a Talk for Writing approach, where imitation, innovation and invention allow children to develop their own writing styles. Extracts from texts are used to support the development of reading skills in whole class reading sessions and regular questioning used to allow children to develop a clear understanding of each story. There are also copies of all of our spine books in the school library for children to enjoy.

Brookfield Junior School - Reading Progression

Reading Progression - Years 1 - 6

Reading in the Wider Curriculum

We are developing a list of texts that children will explore in the wider curriculum. We have begun using these texts in Year 6 whilst we build our bank of books for all other year groups. These texts may be used in the subject lessons or during guided reading sessions.

We have chosen a variety of texts with rich vocabulary that will suit the need of the pupils and challenge them within these subjects. These are working documents so we're working with subject leaders and teachers to develop these even further.