At Sir John Lillie Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill.     

Our aim is to promote a love of reading, whilst developing children's skills in decoding, inferring, deducing and analysing texts. 

We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose. We believe that all our children can become fluent readers who read confidently for meaning and enjoy reading for pleasure.       

To encourage a love for reading, each classroom has a book area with a range of books for the children to enjoy and we also have a well-resourced school library which each class visit weekly. Reading for pleasure is also promoted through events and activities, such as book fairs, school and local competitions, national events and author visits etc.

Early Reading

At Sir John Lillie Primary School, we teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. In these sessions, we use decodable books that are closely matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge.

The reading practice sessions focus on three key reading skills:

• decoding
• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
• comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

When children are learning to read, there are two types of books they will bring home. Children bring home a reading practice book to read to their family. The reading practice book is a decodable book that is matched to the child’s secure phonic knowledge and their reading level.

The children will also bring home a sharing book that they have chosen from their class book area. This book is for the children to enjoy listening to and sharing together with their families.

Children in Nursery also choose a sharing book from their reading area each week to enjoy at home with their families.

Children who read fluently, bring home a book they choose from their classroom book area.

Reading Scheme

Collins Big Cat Phonics, for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised

Phonics

Our school has chosen Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics programme to teach early reading and spelling. We start teaching phonics in the Early Years Foundation Stage and children in Reception and Key Stage 1 participate in daily phonics sessions.

To find out more information about how we teach phonics and how you can support your child with saying their sounds, writing their letters and how you can support their reading at home please click on the Little Wandle badge below: