Our Reading Newsletters

Our children's reading journey begins at home, on the laps of their family and whilst tucked up in bed. We support all families to foster a love of reading and to provide their child with a rich and varied diet of books from a very early age. Starting in Nursery and running through to Year 6, staff nurture the children's love of reading through daily story time, extended reading time, storytelling/performance and the class book corner. All parents are invited to come and join reading workshops (complete with guide sheet for parents) with their child’s year group. In the EYFS, parents are also invited to come and observe story time.

Throughout EYFS, Children's language development is a huge focus when selecting the texts to use - only the best is good enough! Teachers carefully select texts that link to the topics, that children will encounter. This helps the children to access and understand on a much deeper level. Reading continues to be central to our curriculum across Key Stage One and Two. 

Phonics provides the gateway for children to start to read for themselves. This begins, in Nursery, through exploring sounds in the environment, tuning into features of sound, (such as rhyme and alliteration) and how the speech sounds heard in sequence then form words. As children move towards Reception, our highly-trained staff begin the systematic teaching of letter to sound correspondence. This is the stage at which children embark on our school phonics' programme of ‘Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS)’; a government approved synthetic phonics’ programme. Lessons are taught daily and are complemented by reading practise sessions. One-to-one and group interventions are provided to ensure all children ‘keep up’ with the pace they need to become a reader. Children have access to an array of reading challenges within their classroom provision giving them the opportunity to apply what they know. Weekly books are assigned via our Bug Club and through Oxford Owl, so that pupils can practise and celebrate their reading progress at home. 

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/learning-at-home-10-11/

https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/

The ELS programme continues very successfully throughout Year 1. In Year 2, we aim for all children to make a pivotal transition from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn'. Every child is unique so early identification of children, who are not on track to meet this goal, is key. Staff identify any barriers such as SEND needs, EAL or pupils new to the school. They set about tailoring the teaching of phonics to meet the needs of the individual child and to accelerate learning where possible. 

Home reading books have been carefully selected from a range of Reading Schemes, including Floppy’s Phonics, Ladybird Phonics, Oxford Reading Tree, Collins, Big Cat and Pearson. Whilst children are learning to decode texts and become a reader, the home reading books are aligned to the graphemes and phonemes (letters and sounds), that your child has learnt so far. Home reading books are to be enjoyed through practising reading, rather than the challenge of learning something new. Sit back, get comfy and enjoy the opportunity of being read to by your child! The reading expectations documents also set out the types of questions that can be used to support your children in exploring the text.