At Ilam, we value the importance of reading development and adopt a range of methods to encourage a lifelong love of reading.
Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech.
Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure house of wonder and joy for curious young minds. In nursery and reception, reading is taught through a rigorous phonics approach to decode words with phonetically decodable reading books – along with lots of discussion about stories and their content.
We have implemented Little Wandle Phonics which is a systematic synthetic phonics program as set out by the DFE in their validation criteria.
You can view the parent presentation video here.
Beyond this, the children transition to reading material that is not phonically based.
The children have access to a wide variety of reading books from the Big Cat Phonics scheme. Once children become competent and confident readers they move onto free reading. We have a diverse selection of reading books in our school library and enjoy visits from the local area library van. Our children are also expected to read regularly at home supported by their parents/carers and record this in their reading diary/record book.
All our pupils have the opportunity to take part in reading activities throughout the week. These include class reading, story time, reading reviews and reading for pleasure.