Reading at Home

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2

To support and consolidate the skills learned in school, children take home books to read with their family. We use the Collins Big Cat books in Reception and Year 1 which are decodable books matched to our Little Wandle Phonics Programme. Year 2 upwards use the Bug Club decodable books for children who are still developing their decoding skills. Each week the children take home the book they have been reading in school to read to their adult once or twice as a ‘Celebration Read’. This is where the parents can enjoy and celebrate together the success of their child reading a book fluently and with expression and comprehension. Our paper copy books are also complemented with an e-book library so children can access their allocated books on a computer/tablet.

 Alongside this ‘book for practise’ the children will bring home a ‘book for pleasure’ that they have chosen from the library and can be enjoyed for a week. This is for adults to read to them, perhaps at bedtime or snuggled on the sofa. 

KS2  

When children are confident decoders and are looking to develop their fluency and comprehension they start on the Accelerated Reader Scheme which straddles these two areas of learning (see Scarborough’s reading rope below). Each half term, children complete an online assessment to determine their book level. The books in the library correspond to these levels and children choose within their range.  When children have finished reading a book, they complete a quiz which checks their comprehension of the text. Alongside this, children develop autonomy when choosing books that appeal to their interests. Children are encouraged to talk about their reading and the books they have enjoyed, recommending books for their classmates to read this helps to foster a reading community. In order to promote a breadth of reading, children also complete a 'Rainbow Tracker' which encourages to read different genres and types of books.

As well as this, each week the children take home their own personal copy of the text that they are currently reading as part of the whole class reading sessions. They are then encouraged to read a chapter and share this book with an adult at home.  This develops not only a shared understanding of the text but also enhances the reading experiences that children have at home.