Reading
At St Joseph’s we want all of our children to love books. A walk around the school will quickly show how we aim to inspire and nurture a love of reading. Books are easily accessible, valued and prized. Staff are knowledgeable about children’s literature and encourage children to challenge themselves, helping them to make informed choices about what they read. Underpinning our whole class teaching of reading is the St Joseph’s Reading Spine: 35 quality fiction texts and novels which we believe children need to experience before they leave us. Each text is studied in depth alongside quality poetry and non-fiction texts. We teach children the skills they need to be great readers, give them the knowledge they need in order to understand what they read and provide them with the opportunity to make links across their learning and respond with their views.
To give the children the skills they need to become fluent and confident readers, the school focuses on the teaching of phonics through the Sounds~Write approach.
Across the school, every class receives daily guided reading sessions, either as small groups or as a whole class as they progress through the years. Guided reading offers an opportunity to develop and practise reading skills whilst engaging with a variety of texts. Reading skills are taught from Key Stage one and lessons include the canine characters from the Totally Pawsome Gang (see below) who are matched directly to the KS1 and KS2 reading content domains.
Teachers read a ‘class reader’ book to children daily. The books are carefully selected to enable engagement for all and quality discussion.
