One of our priorities within school this year is to develop and instil the love of reading within our children. As a school we recognise the importance of reading. We know that if a child reads well; they do well. If a child makes progress with developing their phonic skills to be able to decode the words in a story; they will have a great range of skills to succeed. As a school we have a number of methods to develop this love of reading.
The first way we do this is through the development of phonics. We use Read, Write Inc which is a synthetic phonics programme that teaches children how to say sounds, which then links into words. These words then link into sentences, which then allows children to understand a story. The programme starts with small steps – recognising and saying the sounds m, a, s, t, d, building up to sounds such as air, ou and igh. All of this is linked through to carefully chosen books that will allow children to practise the sounds they know.
After completing read, write, inc pupils then work on a programme called ‘Accelerated Reader’. This programme assesses where children are with their learning and will then identify a range of books the children can read between. The books are not too hard and not too easy. This allows pupils to select their own books, selecting fiction and non fiction texts they want to read. Pupils then carry out a quiz on the book. All of this allows the pupils to stay engaged with the story and to develop a love of reading.
Following on from this, we also have group reading in class, as well as special days and displays around school to celebrate the beauty of the written word and what we can all do to share this love of reading.
Near our main entrance, we have a new display which captures some of the wide range of books we read across school. The display showcases the books pupils are reading in class and by scanning the QR code next to the book. Visitors can listen to pupils discussing the book, telling others what they like about it.
All of these steps will allow our pupils, from a 2 year old who is beginning to open a book throughout to a year 6 pupils who is onto the third installment of their favourite series to keep reading at the forefront of their school journey.