At Fairchildes, reading is at the heart of our curriculum. We aim to enable all our children to become fluent, competent and passionate readers, and to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.

Reading is taught as a subject in its own right and is developed further within the wider curriculum. Pupils undertake daily group, shared or independent reading throughout the school. They are given opportunities to read aloud, to listen to a variety of texts read by a teacher regularly and develop their ability to discuss what they have heard in a constructive way.

In Reception and Year 1, we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds programme to teach phonics and early reading skills, including sight recognition, blending and sentence structure. We use texts that match the order, in which GPCs are taught, to ensure the children are reading phonetically decodable books at the appropriate level. These books are read both in school and at home (https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk) to practise and reinforce phonic skills, develop confidence and fluency and promote success for all.

In Key Stage 2, children continue to build on the reading practices that have taken place in the EYFS and KS1.

Weekly comprehension lessons (VIPERS) further develop comprehension skills, and ensure that children are reading for meaning and have understood wider meanings within the text. This is in line with the expectations of the National Curriculum and supports the statutory testing of reading in years 2 and 6 (SATs).

Each year, we hold a special ‘Book Week’ to celebrate the art of reading. Activities include visits to local libraries, paired reading with other year groups, competitions and dressing up as favourite book characters.

Parents are actively encouraged to be involved in their child’s reading journey throughout their time at school. As well as children taking books home to read, they can also access our online reading provision.

EYFS and KS1 https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ which provides for phonic and decoding practice as well as reading for pleasure.