At Putnoe Primary, we recognise the fundamental role reading plays in children’s lives and strive to help children become fluent and confident readers. We also recognise the impact reading ability and enjoyment has on a child’s future academic achievement, wellbeing, and success in future life. The reading and writing of Standard English, alongside proficient language development, is the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum. Children that cannot read fluently are at risk of not fully accessing the wider curriculum. It is our aim that all children develop a love for reading, language and books.

We have planned our reading so that children experience a diverse range of stories and books, to help them better understand the world around them. We explicitly teach vocabulary and try to use conversations and texts to introduce children to new words. We have an attractive and resourceful school library, which has a wide range of books to foster the love of reading for all. We use phonics as the main approach to the teaching of early reading, so that children can decode unfamiliar and unknown words confidently; this then leads to children who are able to read fluently and better comprehend the texts they read. We use a banded colour system to set reading books for early readers, so that they are able to access the books confidently with the reading skills they have at any particular point. We encourage reading at home each day both with an adult or independently; we reward children that take part in reading and have facilities for those children that are unable to read at home. We strive for parents and teachers to work together to help children develop the essential skills of reading – decoding, fluency, expression and comprehension.  Throughout the year, we carefully plan author visits and studies, so that children are inspired to read and write for a purpose.

Reading is a priority here at Putnoe, and this can be seen in the environment and displays around school, as well as how children are able to confidently talk about their reading interests and development.

Children are read to every day. This may be their main class novel, a poem, a non-fiction text. They may be asked to quietly listen and enjoy, or there may be more interaction with questions and answers .Children have a reading lesson everyday, that last for approximately 30 minutes. Children visit the library for a lesson each week.

We plan author visits and reading events/competitions throughout the year to keep interest levels high throughout the academic year. A calendar of events for this term can be found on at the bottom of this page.