Why we teach reading

At St. Anne’s Infant School, reading is at the heart of everything we do.  It is the key that unlocks children’s learning in all subject areas.  Reading allows our children to escape into other worlds as well as giving them access to knowledge that broadens their world view and spiritual, moral, social and cultural awareness. Our principal aim is for all children to share our passion for reading for pleasure, for their enthusiasm for books to be ignited and for them to become, successful and capable, life-long readers.

The knowledge, skills and understanding children develop

Children learn to read through our approach of developing both language comprehension and word reading skills.  In the Early Years Foundation Stage, children acquire the skills to communicate confidently and listen to and understand others in order to achieve the end of year Communication and Language Early Learning Goals.  They develop phonics knowledge and gain a rich language and a wide vocabulary enabling them to understand text.  We recognise that fluency and comprehension go hand in hand; we therefore model and teach fluency explicitly from the very first stages of reading and develop and build upon this in Key Stage 1, enabling them to achieve Age Related Expectations (ARE).

Children’s critical thinking skills are developed through in-depth analysis and comparisons of texts from different authors.  By accessing a broad range of literature, children become adventurous readers with a willingness to increase their range of reading matter and

In both EYFS and Key Stage 1, children enjoy a range of high quality stories, non-fiction texts and poetry from around the world and are supported to engage in purposeful discussions. 

The learning experience

From their first day at St Anne’s, children are surrounded by a print rich environment, which encourages a positive culture of reading throughout the school.

Children are immersed in engaging reading experiences where they gain meaning from texts and develop an enjoyment of books.  Their imaginations are stimulated by being read aloud to in class and they are excited to take home bed-time story bags with their some of their personal favourites!

Our well-resourced, enticing library has a wealth of fiction and non-fiction books to choose from, including books that represent the diversity of the world's cultures. Children and their families are encouraged to visit the library to share and borrow books.

Children are provided with reading scheme books which both challenge and interest them.  We work closely with parents and carers, sharing children’s reading successes as well as advice on how to support them further.

In collaborative, whole class reading sessions, children are explicitly taught strategies essential to becoming an independent and resilient reader.