Research has shown that good attainment in reading has a strong correlation with good attainment in other curriculum areas.  At Littleport Community Primary School, we aim for all children to be able to read fluently and gain a lifelong love of reading.  This will help them to continue to acquire knowledge; be continually challenged; grow as individuals; empathise fully with others; play a productive role in the local and global community; achieve their full potential and gain the vital skills and confidence to ‘spread their wings and fly’.

Our Principles underpinning the Teaching of Reading

• First and foremost, we believe that reading for pleasure underpins children’s success in all areas of education. Therefore, we prioritise the teaching of reading for pleasure and access for all children to a range of high-quality texts.
• It is important that all teachers, regardless of the phase they are working in, have an understanding of phonics so they can support early reading and struggling readers. 
• Fluent, expressive reading is vitally important to reading development and is secured by effective modelling from EYFS to Year 6. 
• Teachers expect to interweave background knowledge (either explicitly taught or drawn from our wider curriculum) and the introduction of new vocabulary and language structures to support reading for meaning.
• Children should be taught comprehension strategies to help them become more aware of their own thinking as they read (metacognition for reading).  Teachers do this by explaining and modelling their own thinking, helping children to apply the same strategy and then encouraging them to do it independently.

Our library

We are fortunate enough to have a very well-stocked library.  All children can borrow a book to bring home and enjoy reading.  Younger children will enjoy having this book read to them but even older children enjoy sharing stories with parents.

How we teach reading at LCPS - EYFS and Year One

In EYFS and Year One, children learn phonics to support them with understanding the sounds that letters and combinations of letters make.  We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised to teach phonics.  We use books from Big Cat for Little Wandle books, which are well-matched to our phonics progression.  We know that re-reading books is the best way to develop fluent reading.  We focus first of all on sounding out the words if we need to.  Then we work on reading with expression.  Finally, we check our understanding of the text.  Towards the end of Year One, children take a national assessment of their phonics skills, known as the Phonics Screening Check.

Support for parents

The best way you can support your child with reading is to share the pleasure that reading can bring.  Snuggle up together and share stories before bed and at other times.  As you listen to your child read, give them lots of praise and encouragement.  They may need to sound words out a lot to begin with but will gradually become more confident.  You can find more information about phonics on the Little Wandle link below or the phonics video recorded by Mrs Faiers above.  Here are some helpful definitions of terms your child may use.

grapheme - letter or group of letters written down

phoneme - sound that the letter or group of letters makes

digraph - two letters making one sound (e.g. ea, ph, oo)

trigraph - three letters making one sound (e.g.  igh)

split (vowel) digraph - two letters that make one long vowel sound but are separated by a consonant (e.g, lake, tile, name)

How we teach reading at LCPS - Year Two

During Year Two, most children will make the transition from Big Cat for Little Wandle books to book-banded books.  They will bring home books to read at home regularly.  Over their time in Year Two, children begin to build their stamina to read longer texts and become more confident reading most words without overt sounding out.  Teaching in school begins in small groups and then moves to whole class sessions focusing on different texts.  Children become more confident understanding and discussing texts.  They also work on answering questions in writing in preparation for national assessments in reading.

How we teach reading at LCPS - Key Stage Two (Years 3-6)

In Key Stage Two, we teach reading as a whole class, focussing on different texts, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.  We work on reading fluency and expression and discuss questions about the text.  

Children bring home books from our library which are matched to their reading fluency levels.  We use Accelerated Reader to encourage and monitor independent reading in Key Stage Two.  Children are able to take quizzes after they have read a book and can do this at home or in school.  Reading certificates linked to Accelerated Reader are given out each half term.  The link to take quizzes can be found below.  Each school has its own link so please use this rather than google!

Book recommendations

The website below has lots of recommendations of texts for every age group.  Please also see our Recommended Reads sheets.

We use 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised' to teach children in their early reading. There are some helpful links below to help you support your child at home.