Reading
At Hadrian Academy, we achieve Excellence Together in Reading through thorough planning and delivering a broad and balanced reading curriculum. We have a strong focus on reading daily and make it an absolute priority that children learn to love books and reading. Reading is a key life skill and every child can learn to read with the right teaching and support.
We have a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading:
1. Daily story/class novel
2. Daily reading lesson (Little Wandle Phonics / Reading Plus / VIPERS)
3. Reading for Pleasure (ERIC and 50 Book Challenge)
4. LAMDA
5. Reading at home
1. Daily story / class novel
Every class has a book or class novel which is read every day, with vocabulary and comprehension work ensuring engagement, pleasure and understanding. These books , listed in our Year Group Reading Spine, are set at a challenging level as research shows that simply reading challenging, complex novels aloud and at pace in each lesson repositions ‘poorer readers’ as ‘good’ readers, giving them a more engaged uninterrupted reading experience over a sustained period, and the best progress is made when sticking points are addressed. Data also shows that teaching comprehension at the same time provides a more coherent read and better supports poorer readers by explicitly teaching inference, diagnosed students’ ‘sticking places’ mid‐text and also stretches the average/good readers.
2. Daily reading lesson
Early Reading (phonics)
In EYFS and KS1 children follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics to ensure effective,
consistent teaching of early reading for every pupil. Little Wandle is also used in KS2 as a highly effective reading intervention in small groups.
We are extremely proud of the progress our youngest children make in early reading and evidence of our excellent Phonics Screening results can be found in the Ofsted and Standards section of our website.
Further details of our Phonics Policy can be found here.
Reading Plus 
In Key Stage 2, we have adopted Reading Plus to help children become more fluent, confident readers who really understand what they read.
The programme matches each child to the right level and then gently increases the challenge as they improve. Pupils read a range of interesting fiction and non-fiction texts while completing short activities that build reading speed, vocabulary and comprehension.
Children in Y3-6 use Reading Plus in school three times a week for 30 minutes. Over the week, they usually complete four reading lessons and one vocabulary lesson. By practising regularly, children learn to read more smoothly and automatically and at the same time, increase their words per minute rate of reading. Teachers can see detailed progress information, allowing us to celebrate success with the children and parents and quickly provide extra help or challenge where it is needed.
Here are further details about Reading Plus from a recent parent coffee morning (Wednesday 11th February 2026) Reading Plus - Introduction Presentation for Parents and Guardians.
VIPERS
In Years 2-6, after the Little Wandle curriculum has been completed, our children then increase their reading skills and knowledge through two VIPERS lessons per week. VIPERS (created by The Literacy Shed) 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 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
VIPERS lessons follow a similar format each week: the first lesson focuses on fluency and vocabulary, with the second lesson looking more closely at one of the reading domains and practising finding answers to different types and formats of questions.
3. Reading for Pleasure (ERIC and 50 Book Challenge)
ERIC
At least three times a week, we build in time into the curriculum for all children to read independently, and also read regularly with an adult. Our children also visit our school library weekly: we are incredibly proud of our library, as it is well stocked, our librarian talks regularly with the children to ensure we buy books which the children will enjoy and request and we now have the new addition of our reading vending machine!
50 Book Challenge 
Our Achieving Excellence in reading aim is for every child at Hadrian Academy to read at least 50 books in a year. When they have read 10 books they will receive a certificate, 25 books read will earn them a silver reading badge. When they read 50 books they will receive a token for our new book vending machine!
EYFS and Year 1 will have a class 50 book challenge and each child (Yr2-6) will have their own reading challenge card which they will record the titles of books once finished.
4. LAMDA
We also offer LAMDA classes in small groups to any children who would like the experience. Preparation for the assemblies and exams helps the children’s oracy skills greatly: communicating clearly and expressively, and developing concentration and memory skills.
5. Reading at Home 
Parents play a significant part in ensuring the culture of reading at Hadrian Academy extends into the home. Children are encouraged to read daily at home, record it in their reading record and are rewarded each week with Class Dojo points. These books can also count towards the 50 Book Challenge!