At Houghton Regis Primary School the teaching of reading is integral to our curriculum and reading skills are developed and nurtured through all curriculum areas.
Beginning in Early Years via phonics, we aim for all children to learn to read quickly and accurately by the end of Key Stage One. We do this through teaching phonics using the Little Wandle program. This program allows children to learn all 44+ sounds of the English language and then apply those sounds to words. We teach children the skill of decoding words as this ensures that they are able to read almost any word they come across. Within the daily phonics sessions children will be encouraged and supported to not only practice and develop their decoding skills but also their comprehension and fluency skills.
From year 3, reading is also taught via a whole school approach through whole class ‘Guided Reading’ sessions where the children work on the following key skills:
Children are exposed to a varied range of texts at an aspirational level for them to allow them to apply these core skills. Texts are carefully selected to make sure they are engaging and challenging whilst also making links with their non-core topic areas.
Our guided reading lessons sit alongside our daily English lessons where children are able to use texts to influence and progress their writing. In addition to this, the children have a daily story time session in which they have the opportunity to listen to their teacher read a high quality book of interest.
Once children have progressed through the phonics program, children use Accelerated Reader to quiz on their reading and ensure a depth of understanding and comprehension. This also allows teachers to be sure that the texts the children are accessing are suitably challenging but within their reading ability.
Reading is really at the heart of the curriculum at Houghton Regis Primary School and we aim to not only develop the mechanics of reading but a love of reading too.
How can I help my child?
To support your child with their reading development, we recommend reading as often as possible at home as this will help them to gain confidence as well as practising the skills of blending words together and overall reading fluency.
Click on the documents below to see the ‘Reading Spine’ for each of our Year Groups:
