Welcome to our monthly spotlight and this month we are lucky enough to focus on Reading! It has been wonderful to see the children across school continuing to develop their reading skills, confidence and, most importantly, their love of books.

Reading looks a little different across each year group as our children progress through their reading journey, but one thing remains the same: we want every child to discover the joy, adventure and wonder that books can bring.

Foundation Stage – Beginning Our Journey

Our youngest readers have been busy beginning their phonics journey. They are spending lots of time learning their new sounds and tricky words, developing their confidence and beginning to apply these skills when reading.

Alongside phonics, we are also making plenty of time to simply enjoy stories together. Sharing stories, talking about characters and joining in with repeated phrases helps our children to develop a love of books and understand that reading is not just about learning sounds: it is about discovering new worlds, ideas and adventures.

Year 1 and Year 2 – Continuing Our Journey

In Years 1 and 2, the children are continuing to develop their reading through applying their phonics knowledge to unfamiliar words and texts. We are also spending time listening to and enjoying familiar stories, building children's vocabulary, comprehension and confidence.

Year 1 have particularly enjoyed exploring the wonderful world of Julia Donaldson. Her stories have taken us on exciting adventures to new and imaginative places, while giving us lots to talk about, discuss and enjoy together. The children have loved getting to know the characters and joining in with familiar parts of the stories.

Year 2 have been looking at Pumpkin Soup. Whilst sharing this story together, they have been focusing on being 'Word Detectives' finding tricky words, adjectives, verbs and nouns in the story. Their teachers were particularly impressed with how many they found! 

Key Stage 2 – Exploring New Worlds Through Books

Across Key Stage 2, our children are continuing to broaden their reading experiences by exploring new and increasingly challenging texts. We are sharing novels together and encouraging children to become curious, thoughtful readers who can discuss characters, settings, vocabulary, themes and ideas.

Sharing a class novel gives us the opportunity to discover literature together, hear different perspectives and introduce children to books and authors they may not have encountered before. We hope these experiences will encourage children to seek out new books and develop their own reading preferences.

Reading at Home

As always, we really value the partnership between school and home when it comes to reading. Please continue to make time to hear your child read regularly, whether they are practising their phonics, reading a school book, enjoying a favourite story or exploring a book of their own choice.

Remember that reading success is worth celebrating! A child recognising a new sound, reading a tricky word independently, tackling a difficult sentence, reading with expression or talking excitedly about a character are all important milestones.

Please celebrate these moments with your child and let them know how proud you are of their progress. Your encouragement can make such a difference to their confidence and motivation as readers.

And don't forget that reading to your child is just as valuable. Sharing a story together, even when your child is an independent reader, helps develop vocabulary, imagination, listening skills and a lifelong love of books.

“One of the greatest gifts adults can give is to read to children.”
Carl Sagan

Happy Reading!