Ensuring Reading for Pleasure

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 We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy. 

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• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at All Saints’ CE Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.

• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.

• In Reception, children have access to the reading area every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.

• Children from Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school. As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and use their diaries to keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.

• Children visit the school library once a week in order to access a wider range of books to select and read for pleasure.

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EYFS – Building the Foundations

Our journey begins in Nursery, where children develop a love of books through stories, rhymes, songs, talk and regular opportunities to share texts with adults. Children are encouraged to explore books independently, talk about illustrations, retell familiar stories and develop the listening and language skills that underpin successful reading.

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In Reception, children begin our systematic phonics programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Phonics is taught daily from the beginning of the year, enabling children to learn the sounds that letters represent and use these to blend words independently.

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Children take part in carefully structured reading practice sessions using books that are closely matched to their secure phonic knowledge. These sessions develop three essential aspects of reading: decoding, prosody and comprehension. Alongside this, children hear high-quality stories every day and have regular opportunities to explore books independently and choose books simply for pleasure.

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KS1 – Becoming Fluent Readers

Throughout Key Stage 1, the systematic teaching of phonics remains central to our approach. Children continue with Little Wandle, building increasingly secure word-reading skills and developing the fluency they need to access the wider curriculum confidently.

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Reading sessions continue to develop decoding, fluency, prosody and comprehension, with children taught explicitly how to read with appropriate pace, expression and understanding. Children who require additional support receive carefully targeted Keep-up and Catch-up provision, ensuring that difficulties are identified quickly and pupils receive the practice they need.

As children's fluency develops, there is an increasing emphasis on understanding texts, discussing vocabulary, retrieving information, making simple inferences and explaining ideas. High-quality texts are also woven throughout our English curriculum, helping children see the close relationship between reading and writing.

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KS2 – Reading with Fluency, Depth and Understanding

In Key Stage 2, children build on their secure foundations to become increasingly independent, thoughtful and critical readers.

Every KS2 class has a daily whole-class reading session, giving reading a protected place within our curriculum. Teaching focuses on developing fluency and prosody, alongside increasingly sophisticated comprehension skills. Children explore vocabulary, retrieve and summarise information, make and justify inferences, predict, discuss authors' choices and make connections within and between texts.

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We use Reading Plus across KS2 to complement high-quality classroom teaching. This personalised online programme provides additional opportunities for children to develop reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and reading stamina, while allowing staff to monitor individual progress and respond to children's needs.

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Children continue to encounter a carefully considered range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry through English and the wider curriculum, ensuring that they leave All Saints’ able to read confidently for both pleasure and purpose.

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Reading at Home – Working in Partnership with Families

We recognise that families play an enormously important role in developing successful readers. Children are encouraged to read regularly at home, with reading forming a key part of our home-learning expectations.

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We use the Reading for Parents app to strengthen communication between home and school. Families can record home reading electronically, allowing teachers to celebrate regular reading, monitor engagement and maintain an ongoing dialogue about each child's reading journey.

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Our KS2 children also have access to Reading Plus at home, providing another opportunity to practise regularly and build confidence, fluency and comprehension.

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We encourage families to share a wide range of reading material – not only school reading books, but stories, novels, comics, magazines, poetry, recipes and non-fiction. Reading aloud to children remains important at every age, and we encourage families to talk about books, discuss unfamiliar vocabulary and share recommendations.

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Supporting Your Child at Home​

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