READING AT ST. GILES'
At St. Giles’ Infant School we aim to promote a love of reading in all children and we ensure that reading underpins all areas of our curriculum as we believe that reading is the ‘key’ to unlocking all children’s learning.
Click here for an in-depth understanding of the intent, implementation and impact of the Reading curriculum
We celebrate World Book Day every year, which is usually in March and is an exciting ‘dress up as a character’ day! The children will also be engaged in a range of Literacy based activities on this day.
Each class has an exciting and engaging reading area with a range of fiction, poetry , play scripts and information books for the children to enjoy.
Every child has open access to our library where they will find a wealth of literature. The children also have an allocated ‘Library time’ slot, where they can choose a book to take home on a weekly basis.
Reading sessions take place each day in class and this can include:
Guided Reading
Phonics
Individual reading
Research for a topic (using books and Ipads)
Creating mind maps with key topic vocabulary
Whole class shared reading
Phonics at St Giles’
Our phonics scheme is ‘Letters and Sounds Revised’ delivered through Little Wandle click the link to find out more about this new scheme. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk.
Children will have a daily phonics lesson but phonics may also be delivered as part of a whole class shared reading, story time or a guided group reading session.
We have an extensive range of purely decodable phonics books, such ‘Big Cat Phonics’ and ‘Rocket Phonics’ books. These books match the sounds that pupils know and are carefully selected by the class teacher.
Reading at Home
We encourage children to read at home as often as they can – ideally at least five times a week. Please remember that the understanding (comprehension) of a book is just as important as the ‘mechanical’ reading. Please do ensure that you ask your child about the characters, theme and the plot in their chosen book! A lot of the phonics and reading scheme books do have suggested questions in the book to support with this. Click here to find out why reading with your child matters.
Home reading may include sharing a bedtime story, a library book or their home phonics/ reading scheme book. Each child will have a home reading book that they can change as often as they like. Once they have read the book at home they can return it to school and choose a new one that day! They have a reading record to help monitor their progress which is filled in at home and school. Please do support us with this, by ensuring that the reading record is completed every time your child reads at home. Please click here for Little Wandle guidance on reading at home.
We have an assessment tool in school which is called ‘PM Benchmarking’ and this enables staff to accurately assess where a child is in their reading.
