At Smannell and Enham we aim to provide pupils with the appropriate skills and attitudes to create a love of reading and inspire pupils to read for enjoyment. We want to ensure that all children have access to a range of high quality literature throughout their time with us.
We intend to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to:
Across the school we enjoy daily story time where children listen to their teachers enthral them with exciting stories and adventures. Children have access to a range of quality literature in stimulating classroom environments. Shared reading is also utilised across school to develop fluency and intonation through expressive, modelled reading and to deepen understanding of new vocabulary.
Phonics and Reading Curriculum Implementation
We teach phonics through the Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds Scheme. In Year R and Key Stage One, phonics is taught daily. Phonic teaching is re-enforced throughout the curriculum through the use of sound mats and direct teaching. We use Little Wandle reading books as the school reading scheme. We ensure that a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books are available. The sequence of reading books children work through, are designed to provide a cumulative progression in their phonic knowledge and reflect the teaching of phonics in our Early Years and Key Stage One classrooms. Fluent readers in KS1 read from a range of banded reading books, which go through to Blue level in KS2. Children are offered a selection of ‘free reading’ books from our library, when they have completed all the banded stages.
From Year Two to Year Six we teach reading through daily whole class or small guided group sessions. Children are exposed to a range of literature, including short films and animations, for both fiction and non-fiction. Such lessons focus on explaining meanings of words in context; retrieving and recording information; identifying key details from fiction and non-fiction texts; summarising ideas; making inferences from a text; predicting what might happen; explaining how content is related to and explains the meaning as a whole; identifying how meaning is enhanced through word choices and comparing within and across texts.
Children will experience a wide range of authors and text types during their time at Smannell and Enham, in addition to reading for their own pleasure. We aim to foster a love of language and literature and an active use of our school library and class libraries is encouraged. The children take books home to share and a home-school reading diary is used to develop dialogue about their progress, and for children to reflect on their reading. Parents are encouraged to support daily reading at home and are supported in this through reading and phonic workshops.