There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." - Walt Disney 

At TEACH Trust we actively inspire children to read for pleasure. We strongly encourage you to develop their love for reading. This can be achieved by reading to your child, reading with your child and listening to your child read. 

The importance of talk 

High quality talk and a language-rich environment are central to our approach to developing literacy. Book-related talk introduces children to language that they might not hear in ordinary conversation, especially the vocabulary of the book itself. This primes them to understand what they read later, in their leisure reading and across the curriculum. In school, we provide high quality adult interactions and purposeful experiences that can build the children’s vocabulary. This supports later reading by helping children comprehend what they read.  

Talk is also encouraged through learning partners in class. Learning partners are an excellent way for the children to practise speaking in complete sentences and also listening to other children’s ideas.  

Reading in EYFS and Key Stage 1 

When children learn to read, it is important our children are provided with phonetically decodable books because it allows them to apply their knowledge of letters and sounds. Because the child can decode every word in the book, they feel successful, which in turn helps them build fluency and develop good reading strategies. 

If the child reads a text that is NOT decodable (contains sounds they have not yet learned) the child is unable to use the skills they have learnt and often they resort to incorrect strategies that lead to reading difficulties - children can become frustrated and begin guessing at words. They lose the direct connection between phonics and the text they are reading. 

To become a proficient reader, children must develop and practise applying their knowledge of letters and sounds. Decodable texts provide the child with material they have the skills to decode correctly. Decodable texts help children build necessary skills. The children will also bring home a book to encourage reading for pleasure – this will be a book from our school library and/or another book from the year group book band boxes.  

Children enjoy books for pleasure, outside of phonic lessons and the reading scheme take part in reading activities across exciting topics on a daily basis, through a range of contexts. This is why we have chosen focus authors for each year group and have compiled a list of high-quality books, chosen to inspire reading for pleasure. Each year, we update these book lists to include recommendations from the children and the latest popular books.  

Additional reading opportunities include the following 

Supporting your child at home 

One of the most important ways you can support your child is to spend at least 10 minutes a day reading to them and listening to them read. This is the one thing that will make the most difference to their overall progress with reading in school. 

Researchers in the United States who had looked at the impact of parents reading with their children quoted the following figures in a news release about their findings: ‘Here’s how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1–2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3–5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.’ (Science Daily 2019) 

We would also like to remind you that the books that come home with your children will be easier than the ones they are reading at school. This is so your child can practise their decoding skills with the sounds that they have learnt in school. This will lead to increased understanding, confidence and enjoyment! It is usual for the children to read the same text more than once, and we encourage this. Reading the same book more than once deepens the children’s familiarity with a story, relive the excitement of the book and increases their emotional engagement. It also allows them to hear new vocabulary again, helping them to remember the meaning of new words.  

When the children are reading, we encourage them to use a range of strategies. These include sounding out any unknown words carefully, looking for the graphemes that they know, breaking up longer words, using robot arms to help them blend and to use their pointing finger to follow the words. During reading sessions, the children are able to refer to the prompt card below as a reminder. 

 

Book band Levels  

As your child decoding and comprehension skills progress, they will move to a new book band. The book bands are colour coded and numbered. Your child will start on book band 0 (lilac – wordless books) and follow the progression through the book bands shown below: 

BB0 - Lilac

BB1 – Pink

BB2 – Red

BB3 – Yellow

BB4 – Blue

BB5 – Green

BB6 – Orange

BB7 – Turquoise

BB8 – Purple

BB9 – Gold

BB10 – White

BB11 - Lime

It is really important that the children stay on the same book band until they have good decoding and comprehension skills. Within the book bands, there are a range of text types and some texts are more difficult than others. Your child’s class teacher will notify you when your child moves onto the next book band by writing in your child’s reading record, by providing your child with a new bookmark.  Your child’s book band bookmark provides further prompts and questions that are pitched at an appropriate level for your child. 

Reading Record 

Please use your child’s reading record to keep a record of the books your child reads and to enter a comment about their reading. These may be books they have brought home from school, ones they have borrowed from the library, online books on Reading Buddy and books you have at home.  This record will help us to know what your child can do and inform us about the range of books they have read. We will also write in the record when your child has read in school and provide appropriate keywords for them to practise. 

Our School Library 

Your child will regularly bring home a school library book, please share this book with your child, and ensure that they have their library book in their bookbag on their library day so that they can exchange it for a new one. 

Oxford Reading Buddy 

This is a digital reading service to support children’s reading development at home as well as at school.  

Oxford Reading Buddy contains hundreds of digital books and quizzes all matched to each child’s reading ability. Children can earn badges for good reading behaviours, be coached in their understanding by their personal ‘Reading Buddy’, read a range of books and take quizzes. Everything is captured so that your child’s teacher can see how they’re getting on. You can add every reading activity to their reading record and they will be rewarded in class. 

Please log in to Oxford Reading Buddy using your child’s login details (inside their reading record), and have a look around. Please encourage your child to use it regularly and discuss what they are reading with them. You might be interested in watching them read one or two of the Coaching eBooks because ‘Reading Buddy’ is a good model of how to support and encourage children’s comprehension skills as they read.  

When your child is taking a quiz, please try to provide a quiet workspace for them, but resist the temptation to help them because their answers will help your child’s teacher understand their needs.  

If you don’t have a tablet or PC at home, the service works on a smartphone as well. 

 For more detailed information, please go to this address and choose Parent Support: https://support.oxfordreadingbuddy.com/ or look at the introductory video at https://www.oxfordreadingbuddy.com/uk 

Reading workshops and school events 

Every year in EYFS, all parents and carers are invited in to a ‘Reading information evening’ where the teachers share information about how the children will be taught to read and write in class. 

Parents and carers are also invited in to observe the reading workshop sessions in EYFS.  

Sponsored read takes place in October and raises a large amount of money to buy new books for the school which the children can then take home.  

Book week takes place in March and involves many different reading related activities:  we have a Book Fair on site after school every day; we run a dress up day on World Book day; we invite parents and carers in for shared reading sessions and the children take part in teacher swaps to share different stories.