Come and see our School Library!

We want everyone to benefit from reading the wide variety of books at school and have refurbished our library for everyone to be able to access all kinds of books. Mrs Humphreys has organised our books for children to access easily.

ERIC Time is when Everyone is Reading in Class and is an initiative to support engagement in reading for pleasure. 

Home Reading and Using the Reading Record Diary, September 2022

The children will be bringing home a new Reading Record Diary.

The younger children begin their home-school reading journey by bringing home sounds to learn, or some key words. Support them in learning these. They may also bring picture books home, or books for you to read to them. You can make a note of the stories you share in the Reading Record Diary.

When children can decode words for themselves, they will start to bring a book with words home from school. As the children’s reading confidence develops, they will bring home more complex books to read. Keep a record of the reading you do at home in the Reading Record Diary.

Children who read for pleasure (read out of choice, in their own time) do better at school, so do whatever you can to help your child develop a love of reading. There is also strong evidence that reading for pleasure can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and improve wellbeing throughout life, research carried out for The Reading Agency has found.

When reading with your child, bear the points in mind: 

• It is important to interact with your child when reading. Choose a quiet time to relax and share a story together, making it a fun experience and not a test of how many pages your child can read at any one time. 
• Reading is not just about how well your child can decode written text; it is also about their understanding of what they have read. Discussion at reading time will develop your child’s listening, comprehension, writing and communication skills. It will help them to understand the world, develop opinions and be empathic. Make comparisons between events in the story and your child's own real-life experiences. Discuss the text, the vocabulary, the ideas and the feelings it creates. 
• Retelling events, expressing feelings orally and organising their thoughts will help your child develop the skills they need to think and write creatively.  By engaging fully with reading, your child will start to build their own imaginative skills and begin to understand the craft of the reader and the writer.   
• Young children need opportunities to demonstrate their responses to stories in a variety of ways – their Reading Record will give you some ideas. 
• When your child reads a book from school, they should be able to read it easily. Once they can decode the words, they can work on developing fluency and practise reading with expression, taking notice of the punctuation and reading 'like a storyteller'. 
• If there are pictures, allow your child to use them as clues. 
• ABOVE ALL – remember that reading should always be a pleasant experience 

 (Once your child is familiar with a book, you don’t have to start at page 1 – you can start at their favourite part or choose different bits to read.) 

Discussion of books may include some of these questions, as well as many of your own:

• Look at the front cover. What do you think the story is about?
• Does the front cover make you want to read the book?
• What do the pictures tell us?
• What do you think will happen next? Why?
• What was the character feeling? Why?
• Did you enjoy that part of the story? Why?

These questions, and more, can be found in your child's new Reading Record Diary. The Learning Tools and activities within the diary can play a part in the dialogue with your child. You do not have to complete them, but they are there to help you with ideas. Many children will enjoy the activities and will enjoy engaging with you over reading in a variety of ways. The focus of their reading should be on understanding and enjoyment.  For younger children, adults can scribe for them in the Reading Record Diary.

Explicit reading skills and strategies are taught at school, during literacy lessons, and applied in lessons across the curriculum.  The children read a wide range of texts as part of their lessons. The books your child brings home to read should be ones they can easily read. They need to feel the success of reading and understand the content.

We aim to change your child’s book once during the week. If your child is reading a short book and finishes it in one night, you can:

• re-read it, working on fluency and expression.  (Your child should aim to read ‘like a storyteller’.)
• re-tell the story, using the pictures as clues.
• re-tell the story without referring to the book.
• act out part of the story.
• draw a picture that represents the story and talk about it.
• find another book from home or the town library that has a similar theme and read that/ listen to it.  Discuss the similarities and differences.
• complete one of the Reading Record activities, either in the diary or on a separate piece of paper.

The books that come home from school should form just one part of your child’s ‘reading diet’.  It is equally important for you to read to your child, thus exposing them to more complex vocabulary, that they may not be able to read for themselves, and ideas which you can then discuss. Read a variety of material – modern books, classic fairy tales, their favourite book from home, your own favourite childhood books, poetry, non-fiction, newspapers, annuals etc. Make use of the wonderful library in town.

As your child becomes a more competent and independent reader, the books they choose will be longer and have more challenging vocabulary. They will therefore take longer to read. (A child reading a Harry Potter book may take weeks to read it, despite reading every day.) You should still aim to read daily with the more competent readers, listening to parts of their longer books and discussing the stories, characters, plots and ideas.

At Prendergast C.P. School, we use the 'Read Write Inc. Phonics' programme to introduce our children to the skill of reading.

Children start on the programme in the final term of Nursery.  The Phonics programme is delivered to children in the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes.  Some older children may still need help with phonics as it is important to have secure phonic knowledge in order to become a profficient reader.

The Read, Write Inc. Phonics programme provides a strong foundation in reading skills, which children need to access all other areas of the curriculum.  Children become competent readers, able to use their skills now and in later life:

·       Phonics – The individual sounds in reading. Children learn a new sounds every day or go over sounds that they know.

·       Segmenting – Children practise using an activity called 'Fred Fingers' to find out how many sounds there in words, listen to individual sounds and rehearse breaking down unfamiliar words.

·       Blending – Children put individual sounds together to make full words.

·       Spelling – Children learn to use Fred Fingers to help them spell words as well as hear and see them.

·       Reading – Children read books that contain green (blendable) and red (not blendable) words. They rehearse these words, syllables and word roots, as well as any tricky new vocabulary before attempting to read the book. Reading is all about confidence, flow and success with the Read Write Inc. programme. Children will read the book at least three times, concentrating on different aspects of reading each time: The mechanics, expression in reading, and questions about the story.

The children will start to bring home reading books when we feel they are ready.  When children become more confident with their phonic knowledge and fluency, they will have a wider choice of books to choose from. At home, the most important thing about reading is that it is a positive experience.  If your child is reading to you, they should be able to read the text with ease - showing you what they can do.  Praise your child for what they can do. Please do also read to your child, every day! The books you read to them can be far more complicated than the books they can read for themselves as they will be read by an adult.  It is an opportunity to introduce your child to interesting and varied vocabulary.

Remember, your child can access reading books using their Oxford Reading Buddy login; by registering with Oxford Owl or by making use of the town library.

To hear how you should pronounce the pure sounds as in the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, please view the videos below. We do not recommend following any additional links once the videos finish and cannot be held responsible for their content.

Further helpful Resources:

Read Write Inc Phonics SET 1 SET 2 SET 3 – A Link to a copy of all of the sounds and their accompanying rhymes.

Use this Oxford Owl link and scroll down to watch videos about phonics. 

Click here to download a list of the handwriting rhymes – Individual letters.

A guide to reading with younger children. Some common sense here, but well worth a read.