Reading

We believe wholeheartedly that it is the right of every child to learn to read well. We understand the power that reading has on children accessing not just the rest of the curriculum but on their understanding of the world as a whole. Above all, we aspire for our children to become enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers. In short, we wish for our children to leave us as readers for life.

In order to reach this, we develop children’s understanding of both word reading and language comprehension, any child that is not making adequate progress is supported and guided to reach their academic potential. We do not accept that any child will not have the right to become a passionate and engaged reader and strive to ensure every child enjoys what reading can bring to their lives.

We choose books that celebrate and champion the diverse nature of our school community and allow children to read widely and often. It is so important that we are allowing children to see themselves in books. Exposing children to challenging texts, with difficult themes, that allow them to develop opinions on matters they may never personally face and debating and discussing these in an environment that supports and encourages their voice, whilst still challenging it and holding it to account is a thing of beauty that the world needs more of and by doing so we will create more tolerant, understanding world citizens.

Time is allocated each day, in every class, to sharing class texts. These build across 5 themes; classics, non-linear, complexity of narrator, complexity of plot and award winning texts or future classics. Doing this, as well as exploring a wide range of themes and text types each week in reading lessons, enables children to secure the skills of reading as well as develop their own reading identity.

Phonics

We use the synthetic phonics scheme Read Write Inc to teach our daily phonics lessons at the beginning of our children’s reading journey. These lessons start in foundation when the children join us and usually continue until the spring term of year 2, after this the children will move into whole class guided reading lessons. We regularly assess and group the children according to their sound knowledge and word reading to ensure they are always learning at their challenge point. 

We send home weekly ‘book bag books’ which are carefully matched to the children’s phonics knowledge to support their reading progress and foster a love of reading. 

Please visit the RWI website for more useful information for parents and carers:

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/

Files to Download