At Biggin C of E Primary School, we believe that reading is a fundamental skill for life, and teaching our children to become fluent, confident, articulate readers is absolutely integral to what we do. It is our intention that children are able to decode as soon as possible by applying a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed. We will support and encourage all children to decode, become fluent, comprehend and enjoy reading and strive to enable good progress through high quality teaching and learning.
We explicitly teach reading skills throughout the school that continually develop children’s understanding and enjoyment of texts. We hope that by teaching the children at Biggin C of E Primary to read at age appropriate levels they will be able to enjoy books and other written media, to access information, to follow written instructions in all curriculum areas and the environment around them.
We aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment that promotes a culture of reading, enabling children to become lifelong, confident readers. We want them to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of high quality text types, genres and authors in order for them to make informed choices and opinions about their favourites and develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.
Reading at home
Reading at home is an essential part to our reading here at Biggin. Working closely with parents, so that our children develop a love of reading is very important to us. Each half term we encourage parents to come into school for our Story-Time session which gives parents the opportunity to share a story with their child and talk about what they are reading, whether that be the story at hand or their class text.
Here at Biggin C of E Primary alongside our Phonics Scheme we movitive, montior and manage our children's independent reading with Accelerated Reader. Please find the link below to read more about Accelerated Reader and what your child will be using.
Accelerated Reader Parents Guide
Accelerated Reader Pupil Login
How can parents support with reading at home?
Daily reading practice will help develop children’s decoding and comprehension skills. Although it is not expected that they should read a whole book, children are encouraged to read daily at home for at least 10 – 15 minutes with an adult for fluency and encouraged to discuss their texts. Children will spend longer discussing their understanding of what they have read.
Use the pictures, the characters, how they think the story will end, their favourite part etc. You will then see how well they have understood the content and you will help them develop their comprehension skills.
Encourage your child to read a variety of texts on a regular basis, even taking the opportunities to note and read texts in their environment such as leaflets, shop signs, road signs, information posters, newspapers.
There are websites that parents can visit for book recommendations and children's bestselling books. See the link below ⬇️
Booktrust
School Reading List
