Please see this page for information on our reading (including phonics) curriculum and its place in wider school life.

We understand that reading and wider English skills are the keys to all learning and being a fully participating member of society who can communicate effectively with others. We aim for all learners to leave our school equipped with a strong command of reading across all subjects as well as the ability and desire to read widely for pleasure. A strong command of reading enables a pupil to read fluently, confidently and with good understanding. We intend that pupils can discuss their reading eloquently and clearly, drawing upon the wide vocabulary that they have gained through reading, speaking and listening opportunities. Pupils will enjoy reading widely and have an appreciation of our rich literary heritage.

Reading is taught as a priority daily to all learners. Pupils are taught phonics daily via the Read, Write, Inc. Phonics programme in Reception and Year 1, or until they are confident and fluent at decoding. This may be in the form of Read, Write Inc. Fresh Start for those working in Key Stage Two. Phonic skills continue to be revisited and drawn upon throughout the rest of the school as pupils develop their reading skills via daily VIPERS reading lessons. They continue to apply and develop reading skills across the curriculum as reading opportunities are built into all subjects. A range of high-quality texts are carefully selected to support and challenge all learners as well as providing rich and varied reading opportunities to promote a love of reading. Pupils are given choice in their reading material, including carefully matched home reading texts and library books. We promote reading throughout the school via parent engagement activities, World Book Week, author and theatre visits and trips to Stourport Library.

VIPERS is a range of reading prompts based on the 2016 Reading Content domains found in the National Curriculum Test Framework documents for KS1 and KS2. VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s Reading Curriculum.

What are Vipers?

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum.  They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

VIPERS stands for

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explanation

Retrieval

Sequence or Summarise

The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc.  As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions.  They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards.

They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand to improve their comprehension of texts. At St Wulstan’s, children’s exposure to VIPERS starts in Reception where specific reference and appropriate sentence-stems are also used alongside the Read Write Inc. comprehension development in Reception and Year 1. As shown in this document, these skills are built upon and deepened progressively each year to ensure that pupils leave primary education with strong comprehension skills, across a range of texts. Our curriculum is designed so that key, fundamental knowledge is often revisited, allowing deliberate opportunities for retrieval practice, therefore embedding key learning.

The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc. As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions. They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards.

Teachers use VIPERS to support children’s comprehension skills in whole class reading lessons. Children are exposed to new vocabulary, retrieval and inference questions in every session. The children then further develop the different aspects of VIPERS through carefully chosen tasks often linked to specific year group shared texts.

Please see below resources to support your child with reading at home. These include resources shared at Mrs Tasker's recent 'Reading for Pleasure and Understanding' workshop in the Autumn Term and the 'Sharing a Text' workshop in the Spring Term. Please contact your child's class teacher or Mrs Tasker (English Lead) if you would like any further support or have any questions regarding reading

Please see the link below to Sooper Books. The website shares a wide range of texts that can be read, or be listened to for free! Texts can be filtered to show books suitable for different ages, or for different interests. Why not try reading one of these tonight at home?

Please also see the school Facebook page for the 'Weekly Reading Tip'. This provides examples of ways of supporting your child's reading at home. Our wonderful readers in school love helping us create these videos and showing off their superb reading skills!