English Reading - 

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Our aim at Waterville Primary School is to deliver an exciting and creative English curriculum that enables and empowers children to have an innate passion for reading and writing.

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Love for Reading

Our overarching aim for English is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment and pleasure.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read. Therefore, we work hard to ensure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

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EYFS and KS1

We start by teaching phonics in EYFS and Years 1 and 2 using the highly successful ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics programme. Children learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well.

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Children also practise reading (and spelling) ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’. Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise reading books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start to believe they can read which in turn enhances their confidence.

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Teachers read regularly to children, too, so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as supporting their writing.

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Up until the end of Year 2, your child will work with children who are at the same reading level. This is so that the teaching can be focussed upon their needs. Some older children will continue to access Read Write Inc groups if they need further consolidation and development of reading skills.

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KS2 (years 3, 4, 5, 6)

Once children are able to read fluently, at speed, and no longer access the phonics programme, they take home banded texts which are aligned to the National Curriculum and are carefully matched to their decoding and comprehension ability. These books are engaging, accessible and appropriate to children's stage of development. Each stage in the book band includes a range of fiction and non-fiction books which children are keen to pick up and enjoy. These books are used during regular guided reading sessions with teaching staff in their class. Children are also encouraged to read their book at home, with parents/guardians being encouraged to record this in their child’s home-school reading diary.

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A wide selection of further reading material is available for the children to choose from (such as the class or school library) and projects linked to reading are integrated within classes, with rewards systems for encouragement.

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To enhance our curriculum, classes read shared texts where reading and writing combine, providing children with a deeper understanding of texts.

Books are carefully chosen to meet the needs and interests of the cohort and staff develop teaching plans to enthuse the children. They often link into our wider curriculum, with history, geography and social themes particularly popular with our pupils.