Reading

Reading at Ivy Bank

Ivy Bank promotes reading for pleasure at every opportunity. We value the teaching of reading very highly; learning to read is one of the keys to independence in learning. Children who read for enjoyment every day develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures.

We believe the most important factors in learning to read are: enjoyment, understanding, confidence, independence and fluency. We aim to promote a lifelong love of reading.

How we Teach Reading

In Early Years and Key Stage 1, early word reading is taught through a systematic synthetic phonics programme (Llittle Wandle) which has been carefully designed to best meet the needs of the children at Ivy Bank. Children in Nursery are given a wide range of language rich experiences that develop their awareness of sounds, rhythm and rhyme. All children have the opportunity to listen to stories both read and told to them every day. See our Phonics page to find out more information on how we teach phonics at Ivy Bank.

In Key Stage 1 and 2 we progressively teach reading strategies and behaviours that can be applied to a range of text types and genres across the whole curriculum. We use the ‘Steps to Read’ programme of work (from Literacy Counts) where we create opportunities to develop reading fluency and comprehension with a focus on key reading strategies and skills. Steps to Read provides a clear teaching sequence to reading sessions that explicitly teach reading skills and strategies in a cumulative way through evidence-based approaches. These lessons are set around a range of quality literature each half term.

Reading for Pleasure

At Ivy Bank, we recognise that reading for pleasure at school is a vital part of the jigsaw when enabling children to learn to have a life-long love for reading. During the school year, the children share their love of reading with our school community through events such as World Book Day, Book Swaps, Book Fair, Mystery Reader and author visits.

Every year we celebrate World Book Day with fancy dress and themed actvities. We also invite authors into school to show children just how exciting reading and writing can be. Recently, Duncan Beadie, author and illustrator of 'The Bear Who Stared' and 'The Lumberjack's Beard' inspired us.

In school, we have a well-resourced library, which is open to every child offering high quality books promoting an independent approach to learning and reading.