Reading
'Reading is the gateway for children that makes all other learning possible.' - Barack Obama
Reading has the highest priority in our school- we are committed to ensuring every child learns to read and develop a love of reading.
Children entering our school in EYFS are immersed in phonics from Day 1. We follow the ELS synthetic programme (you can learn more on our Phonics page) and ensure that all children have a reading book matched to the sounds they know and understand.
Reading has a high priority on our timetabled curriculum and from Year 2 upwards children have dedicated reading lessons where they are introduced to a new text each week. From this they learn new vocabulary, have opportunities to read aloud and see modelling of answering reading questions before they independently write their own.
Our main objective at New Road is to foster a love of reading. Children are encouraged to value books and read for learning and enjoyment through a wide range of literary texts from all genres.
Children will be encouraged to read with fluency and understanding, utilising a combination of strategies including phonic knowledge, contextual clues and sight vocabulary. Children's awareness of syntax, punctuation, expression and comprehension will be developed and assessed through the explicit teaching of reading as well as individual reading.
We use Accelerated Reader in KS2 where children can enjoy reading books which are directly matched to their vocabulary skills. The children love completing quizzes once they have finished their books to see how much information they have retained. The quizzes are a great way for the teachers to monitor whether the children fully understand what they have read before progressing onto the next level.
Every day all the children in school will listen to their teacher reading from their class book. This may be a longer novel with daily extracts read out or it could be a short story that is re read over a few days.
We believe that reading opens children up to new ideas, new knowledge and improves communication skills so our ambition is to help all our children to become life-long readers.
Guided Reading
Our Guided Reading Curriculum is designed around building fluency, confidence, understanding and a love for reading. Each day has a specific focus:
Click on the link below to see the reading teaching coverage and progression mapping through the school from EYFS to Year 6 -
Recommended Reading Books
Below you can find recommended reading books for each year group. Each list contains 50 books specially picked out for reading for pleasure and is matched to your child's year group. The lists includes a balance of age- appropriate fiction, picture books, non-fiction and poetry.
Reception Recommended Reading Books
Year 1 Recommended Reading Books
Year 2 Recommended Reading Books
Year 3 Recommended Reading Books
Year 4 Recommended Reading Books
Year 5 Recommended Reading Books
Year 6 Recommended Reading Books
Non- Fiction Recommended Books: Reception - Year 6
We also use books to help stimulate class discussions and support the teaching of diversity throughout the school. Our school display below shows some of the books our children read in school that cover a range of diversity topics and issues.
