Reading At Westacre

Here at Westacre, reading is at the heart of our curriculum. We believe that children thrive more effectively when they are immersed into a rich reading diet that enables them to not only learn to read, but read to learn. Every attempt is made to ensure that our children have opportunities to read wherever possible both within reading lessons and across the curriculum. Quality texts are not just for English lessons! We ensure that our topic units of work are based around books that not only capture the imagination of our children, but open their eyes to the world around them, providing a deeper understanding and richer experiences.

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We understand that competence is key to independent learning, which is why we are committed to getting children reading early. All children have equal access to our curriculum and we ensure that less confident children are identified quickly and are fully supported during their reading activities.

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Reading is our passion and we want children at Westacre to develop their own love of reading too. We ensure that the children have many opportunities to take time to simply enjoy books, whether reading independently or listening to a story being read to them. During independent reading, children are encouraged to choose books that they want to read and are given the skills to help them make appropriate choices.

 

We have high aspirations for the children at Westacre that aim to help them to:

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1. Gain a life-long love of reading and books. 

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2. Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed.

 

3. Develop as fluent, confident and independent readers.

 

4. Read aloud with expression and clarity.

 

5. Develop and extend their vocabulary and grammar.

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6. Read and respond to a wide range of different text types.

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Phonics

We use Read Write Inc as our government approved synthetic phonics programme. The programme is a method of learning letters and sounds and blending them together to read and write words. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have phonics lessons five times weekly. All children read phonetically decodable books in these lessons, which have been carefully matched to their phonemic knowledge. In Nursery. Phase 1 phonics activities are focussed on to develop children’s phonemic ability whilst in Summer term, children begin to learn Set 1 Sounds.