In YR and Y1, children practice reading the words on the page by reading texts that are fully aligned to our phonics programme. The books are phonically controlled to ensure the children are practising previously taught sound-spelling correspondences. It is vital that children develop their code knowledge to automaticity, so they will practice reading from the same decodable text for several days until they are completely fluent. In addition, they listen to texts read to them from our reading canon to ensure they experience a rich reading diet that develops their vocabulary and background knowledge. As their code knowledge increases, children begin to read aloud texts from the reading canon. When learning to decode, children will take home a phonically controlled text to practise the mechanics of reading, and they will also take home a language-rich text to share with a family member. Once children have learnt sufficient code, the texts they take home will be selected by them with support from their class teacher.

Being able to read quickly and fluently unlocks comprehension of the written texts. Anything that occupies our attention limits our ability to think; if we have to spend too much time thinking about how to decode the words on the page, we will have reduced capacity to consider the meaning of those words. In order to optimise reading fluency, all children read aloud in whole class reading lessons. This may be individually, through echo reading or repeated reading. All children read the text as secondary readers, while the primary reader is reading aloud to maximise the amount of reading done by every child in every lesson. We pitch the texts above the national reading level for each age group in order to develop children’s ability to read effortlessly over large sections of academic text as they progress through the school. We set our expectations high and anticipate that children will meet those expectations.

Reading is more than lifting the words from the page; children need a rich vocabulary and background knowledge to help them understand the words they are reading. Our reading canon has been carefully selected to ensure all children develop a broad and deep vocabulary and background knowledge to develop their reading comprehension. We also read in all curriculum areas to further develop this.

Across the whole school, specific reading techniques are used to ensure that all children join in with reading aloud. These include repeated reading and close reading of sections of text. Additional scaffolding may be required for the slower graspers, for example, the teacher informs the child in advance which part they are expected to read, and children may pre-read the text with an adult ahead of the whole class lesson. Teachers plan in advance which child reads which part of the text in order to push the faster graspers with more complex vocabulary or allowing opportunities for fluency for the slower graspers. As well as whole class reading aloud, there are regular opportunities for ‘close reading’ and ‘art of the sentence’ where children are expected to answer questions and write specific sentences about the passage of text they have just read. After writing, the class then have an in-depth discussion about the passage they have just read. Teachers also carefully select vocabulary to teach explicitly and implicitly from the text and children are given plentiful opportunities to pronounce the word and use it orally in a variety of contexts. We give children child-friendly definitions and do not promote guessing definitions. We run our reading lessons in this way in order to expose children to high-quality literature and develop their fluency and prosody, as well as to increase their vocabulary breadth and depth.

The National Curriculum

The national curriculum states, “Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society.” It also says that schools must “develop their (the pupils’) love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.”

There is no better way of phrasing it and, at St Christopher’s, it is what we strive to do.

Early reading

Research has shown that one of the best ways to support children in starting their reading journey is with a systematic phonics programme that teaches them the sounds made by different letters and combinations of letters. At St Christopher’s, we follow the Sounds-Write programme to ensure that children from Reception to Year 2 are taught the key decoding skills they need to read the print on a page. However, at the same time they need to hear, share and discuss a wide range of high quality books to develop a love of reading and broaden their vocabulary.

Our Reading “Diet”

Following advice from our partners at DEMAT and drawing on key research into developing reading fluency and comprehension, we have created a reading canon for the whole school. This is a spine of literature that has been carefully planned to ensure our children have a rich and varied diet of literature throughout their time at St Christopher’s; both books that they will read and study in depth and those they will read for pleasure.

Reading Comprehension

Through daily whole class reading lessons, children will carefully unpick background knowledge, vocabulary and language structures to develop their comprehension skills. They have opportunities to read aloud together, independently and with the teacher to improve fluency. Daily “Reading for Pleasure” time is scheduled into the timetable, too, giving pupils the chance to read quietly to themselves, listen to an adult read a class book or prepare poems and plays to read aloud and perform.

Practise Makes Perfect

In addition to all of the reading in school, children are encouraged to share books at home and can take home books from our reading scheme. Initially, the books are carefully matched to children’s phonic knowledge so that they can practise the decoding skills they are learning daily in phonics. As the children progress, the books progress, too, to ensure a diverse range of texts is available to build their vocabulary and pique their interest across the age groups.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss