Reading
Across the school children have access to a wide range of high-quality texts to develop learning in all curriculum areas. Reading good quality texts (fiction, non-fiction and poetry) to the children is a priority in all year groups. Please see below the exciting texts we use to enrich our Caritas Curriculum.
The teaching of Reading begins in the Foundation Stage with the systematic teaching of phonic skills, using Floppy Phonics. When they are ready, the children move on to reading using a wide range of reading schemes such as Oxford Reading Tree, Floppy Phonics and Bug Club. All schemes are phonically matched to where the children are currently learning. Parents support their children's reading daily at home. Once our children have grasped the mechanics of Reading our priority shifts towards reading comprehension and children take part in daily Guided Reading sessions. Reading for pleasure is a high priority – our Library is visited by classes during the week and every classroom has its own Reading Area from which children are encouraged to borrow books to take home. We also have genre boxes which are rotated half termly for pupils to access many different types of texts. Our Reading Champions promote reading for pleasure throughout the school by recommending books and sharing those with the school, by modelling reading in different classes and through competitions and events. We have links with our local Library to support reading both in school and with families at home. Each Termly topic is centred on a book that hooks the topic together, further developing a love of reading within our children and placing reading at the very heart of all that we do.
Read, Read, Read!
'A book is gift you can open again and again'-Garrison Keillor
Reading with your child regularly at home can have a remarkable effect on the progress they make at school. To maximise this progress, it is best to hear your child read little and often; 10-15 minutes every day is all it takes.
Your child's teacher and or LSA will hear them read at least once each week. When you read with your child don't forget to sign their reading diary so that we know they have read with you and whether or not the book needs changing.
While it is important that your child can decode the words in the text, it is equally important that they have understood what they have read. You can support this skill by asking your child lots of questions about what they have read. You might ask them to predict what is going to happen next, or what the main parts of the story are or what their opinion of the story is. There are some helpful guides to reading with your child in the tab to the right.
Above all, reading should be fun and enjoyable for your child. Although the book we give you at school is important, please encourage your child to read other books from a range of genres.
Please see the following link for reading recommendations.