Home Reading
Reading at home is very important in all areas of reading and at all ages and stages so we encourage all children to read at home as often as possible.
Reading for pleasure
This is a special time for parents to read a story to their children. It can be a book from the school library, the local library or book that you own that the children have chosen because they want to share it. It is not a reading book from school that the children are reading to learn to read.
Early Reading
In the first steps of reading, the children will take home flashcards, blending cards and Jelly and Bean books with captions that they have read during their Guided Reading lessons each week in school. When they are ready to read sentences, they will move onto Floppy’s Phonics books. Following their lessons in school, the children will take home their book to share and celebrate their reading with their families, practise further to build fluency and talk about the book to continue to build on their understanding of it.
Key Stage 1
After completing Floppy’s Phonics Phase 6, the children move onto banded books to match the Collins Big Cat book band that they are reading in school during Guided Reading lessons. By the end of year 2, they read gold, white and lime in line with the KS1 assessments. The children will be able to read these books so can enjoy sharing them with their families by discussing any new words that they might come across in the book, re-reading the book to improve their fluency and expression and talking about the book together to improve their understanding of it.
Key Stage 2
Children in Key Stage 2 will take home their Accelerated Reader book. They should aim to read for 20 minutes each day. This means that they can complete their book, do their quiz and chose a new book often enough to meet their individual target each half term and progress through their ZDP to improve their comprehension skills. in terms of the amount that they are reading for the half term. It also sets each child’s individual ZDP range.
Children who have not yet passed the Phonics Screening in Year 1 or Year 2 continue with their phonic learning in Key Stage 2 and read phonetically decodable texts to match this phonics phase until it is complete and secure. They will bring this book home to practise reading to build fluency and understanding.
Reading Diaries
All children are provided with a prepared pre-dated reading diary. These are used daily to evidence reading activities in school (Guided Reading, independent reading, Accelerated Reader quiz scores and individual reading with a school staff). We ask parents to record their child’s reading experience at home in the diary each day.
