What Reading Looks Like at KWPS
At KWPS we use the Ready Steady Ready Together programme which is written by Literacy Counts. This programme is built around a sequence of high-quality, age-appropriate texts, withing each unit of learning. The resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that integrate metacognitive strategies and feature diverse literature. It aims to inspire children and families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information.
The Intent of our Reading Curriculum
At KWPS our intent is that all pupils, from year 2 to year 6, regardless of their needs, abilities or background, have opportunities to meet, and where possible exceed, the National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension.
Ready Steady Read Together gives every pupil access to high-quality texts, enabling them to experience literature that develops fluency, vocabulary and understanding. Through explicit teacher modelling of expression, pace, intonation and prosody, children learn how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support comprehension.
Shared reading also creates opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and exploration of language, which deepen comprehension whilst enhancing oracy skills. Crucially, it ensures that every child, regardless of their decoding ability, can engage with ambitious texts and develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and learning.
The Implementation of our Reading Curriculum
Ready Steady Read Together units are built around engaging, vocabulary-rich texts and provide a wealth of opportunities for reading, discussion and metacognition.
Five explicit Ready Steady Read Together lessons are delivered each week. To support children, each class displays age appropriate scaffolding during the lesson to ensure all children succeed and fosters a positive reading culture.
Class follow specific Ready Steady Read Together vehicle texts in each unit with suggested supplementary books to support the themes and encourage reading for pleasure. Giving the children the opportunity to experience high quality texts and build up knowledge of different authors, to help them make future book choices to read and enjoy.
Units follow a clear sequence of learning episodes, support vocabulary development in context and include structured opportunities for retrieval, fluency and strategy modelling and discussion. Gamification elements and interactive low-stakes quizzes link directly to the KS1 (Year 2) and KS2 (Years 3–6) reading content domains, reinforcing understanding while ensuring progression through the National Curriculum.
Lesson plans, resources and leadership guidance are provided through the online membership homepage. Teaching is supported with structured questions and answers that enable teachers to model, scaffold and extend pupils’ understanding so that all children can access and engage with texts effectively. The shared reading curriculum is mapped through the Progression Overview documents and units include all resources required to deliver dynamic and inclusive lessons.
Progression is actively embedded within teaching to build comprehension skills, word reading, understanding of terminology and knowledge of the content domains step by step, ensuring consistency and clarity across the year groups.
Assessment
Teachers use daily formative assessment through observation, questioning and feedback to stretch and challenge pupils and to identify those who need additional support. In addition to this feedback, a low-stakes quiz is completed in the fifth lesson each week, giving children the opportunity to apply the strategies and skills they have been developing.
Throughout the academic year, three assessments are carried out in each year group. Results can then be analysed using the associated Excel document which breakdowns results to enable gap analysis. The data highlights strengths and weaknesses across the content domains. By identifying next steps, the tool helps teachers and leaders target teaching and explicitly model the required skills and strategies in subsequent lessons. Subject leaders analyse termly data and address areas for development. Attainment, progress and barriers to learning are reviewed in termly pupil progress meetings, where clear actions are agreed to close gaps, particularly for pupils in the bottom 20%.
Inclusion and Adaptive Practice
‘If you get it right for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, you get it right for everyone.’
(Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector at the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, March 2025).
Ready Steady Read Together is aspirational for every child. It ensures that all pupils, including those with barriers such as dyslexia who may struggle with fluency and independent reading, are given opportunities to develop their comprehension of challenging texts with scaffolded support. Children who face language barriers, such as those with English as an additional language, benefit from accurate English modelling, peer collaboration, dual coding, scaffolded speaking and listening activities and the use of technology to aid comprehension. For pupils with special educational needs, the programme provides guidance and advice through suggested intervention, scaffolds and breakdown strategies.
The supporting programme, Ready Steady Read Together: Go, includes details about scaffolding for fluency and comprehension, explicit instruction in breakdown reading strategies and guidance on flexible groupings to ensure appropriate challenge and peer support. It also advises on activities and interventions at Wave Two and, where necessary, Wave Three interventions.
Confident readers are encouraged to deepen their understanding, explore a wide range of literature and develop higher-order thinking, with units adapted to provide additional challenge where appropriate.
The Impact of our Reading Curriculum
At KWPS, we want every child to become a confident reader with a love of books. To achieve this, high-quality teaching, carefully matched learning activities, regular assessment and appropriate additional support are central to our approach.
Through strong partnerships between school and home, we aim to ensure that children are encouraged to read at every opportunity.
At KWPS, we strive to foster a genuine love of reading and support children in mastering this essential life skill. Reading is the journey that enables children to Belong, Believe and Be the Best They Can Be.
