Reading At all saints

Reading

Our goal is for every child to become a fluent, confident reader—no exceptions. Reading is the foundation of the entire curriculum, and we are dedicated to developing skilled readers who cultivate a lifelong love of literature.

Reading for Pleasure in Reception, KS1 and KS2

In EYFS and KS1, we nurture this love of reading through a range of engaging activities. We host weekly Reading Mornings across EYFS and KS1, where parents are invited to join their children in class for a shared reading experience. Children also enjoy weekly library sessions to explore a variety of books and expand their literary interests. Additionally, our exciting Book Trunks offer two children from nursery to Year 2, the chance to take home a special trunk containing a carefully chosen story, a cozy hot chocolate, a cuddly teddy, and a chocolate coin. Inside the trunk, there’s a notepad where children and parents can share their reading experience together, creating lasting memories and fostering a shared love of books.

Early Years and Key Stage 1 (Reception and KS1)
In Reception and Key Stage 1, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics programme, which is validated by the Department for Education (DfE). This programme is built on the updated guidance from the DfE’s Letters and Sounds: Improving Rates of Progress 2021, along with the latest research on effective learning methods for young children. It ensures that phonics knowledge is retained in children's long-term memory, helping them apply their learning to become confident, skilled readers.

Our reading scheme is supported by Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, with books that are carefully aligned to the programme’s progression. These books cover all phases of phonics learning and include an engaging mix of fiction and non-fiction, fostering a love for reading in every child.

 Little Wandle Reading Sessions

In Reception and Year 1, your child will participate in small group reading sessions three times a week, each lasting 20 minutes. These sessions focus on developing key reading skills, including decoding, prosody (reading with expression), and comprehension. After reading the book in school for a week, your child will bring the book they’ve been reading home to practice and reinforce their learning. In Year 2, children will continue working in small groups until they have completed the Little Wandle programme of books.

In Ks2, your child will read out loud during their reading lesson daily, with an adult once a week and if they are identified as needing the extra support, they will be listened to daily by a member of teaching staff.

Supporting your child with reading

Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home.

There are two types of reading book that your child may bring home:

A reading practice book. This will be at the correct phonic stage for your child in EYFS and KS1 and the correct colour band for your child in KS2. They should be able to read this fluently and independently.

A sharing book. Your child will not be able to read this on their own. This book is for you both to read and enjoy together.

Reading practice book

This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading.

Listen to them read the book. Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success! If they can’t read a word, read it to them. After they have finished, talk about the book together.

Sharing book

In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together.

Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a non-fiction book. The main thing is that you have fun!

We also teach reading skills following the VIPERS format. Pupils read often and have weekly access to a range of books from our school library and daily access to our inviting class reading areas. Our reading scheme provides a wide range of high quality reading books, which include poems, stories and information texts. 

To boost reading for pleasure in school further, each teacher has chosen an author to focus on during their class read time (15 minutes daily). 

If you would like to know more about our reading scheme, or how you can help at home, please call into school and speak to your child’s class teacher.

Phonics

Little Wandle Phonics at Our School

In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1, we teach phonics using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. Phonics instruction begins in Nursery with Phase 1, which focuses on developing listening skills by identifying and matching environmental sounds, such as everyday noises. As children progress into the Reception class they move to Phase 2, where they are introduced to the sounds (phonemes) and names of letters in the alphabet. At this stage, children learn how to blend sounds to read simple words and segment them to spell.

Once children are confident with basic letter sounds, they advance to more complex sounds, including digraphs and trigraphs. A digraph represents a single sound made up of two letters (e.g., "sh" or "ch"), while a trigraph consists of three letters producing one sound (e.g., "igh" as in "light").

In Year 2, phonics instruction continues with a focus on more advanced spelling patterns, following the Little Wandle . Throughout school, children are given weekly spellings to practice at home as part of their homework.

Phonics lessons are taught through concise, 20-minute sessions that follow a structured sequence of revisiting previous learning, introducing new sounds, and applying them. Each session gives children the opportunity to practise and apply their phonics skills in both reading and writing activities, ensuring they build strong foundations for literacy.

At the end of Year 1 pupils complete a statutory phonics screening task which assesses pupil’s phonic knowledge and ability to segment and blend sounds in order to read a range of real and nonsense words. Throughout the year we hold phonic workshops and meetings for parents to attend.