Reading at St. George's School
At St George’s school we are passionate about reading. We teach reading daily and provide children with opportunities to read across the curriculum. Books have been carefully selected to help develop children’s skills as a reader but also develop a passion and enthusiasm for reading. There is a broad range of subject matter and genres.
Books are selected to match our curriculum learning, supporting children in developing their understanding and key vocabulary. In addition, we work hard to ensure that our children see themselves represented in reading and have access to a wide range of diverse texts.
World Book Day 2024
This year for World Book Day we asked children to bring in a potato dressed as a character from a book. We were overwhelmed with the wonderful and creative entries into our potato parade! A winner was chosen from each class an d the winners were given the opportunity to choose a brand new book.
We also celebrated World Book Day by playing St. George's Masked Reader. The teaching staff used the wonders of role-play masks and technology to disguise themselves reading part of their favourite books. The children then had to guess who each member of staff was.
The children then finished the day by inviting parents into the classrooms to read with the children.
Libraries
At both our Towers and Woodlands sites, we are lucky to have beautiful, well-resourced libraries to inspire our young readers. The libraries contain a fantastic mixture of classic stories and new releases. We have a number of Year 6 Librarians to help source and run the library with a member of staff.
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Reading at home
Woodlands
At Woodlands, children receive a reading card. We encourage children to read 5 times a week at home. This can be done with an adult, to a friend or independently. Children or adults then simply tick their reading card. Children who read 5 times receive a special reading sticker!
Woodlands children take 2 reading books home a week. One ‘child’s choice’ book for developing pleasure for reading and one phonics or fluency book, for developing the children’s reading fluency.
Towers
At Towers, children are also encouraged to read 5 times a week. Children receive reading records where parents and pupils can comment on the book they are reading. All children can choose a ‘child’s choice’ book every week to read at home and school.
Chrildren who require Phonics are given a weekly Phonics book to read and those who are still working on their fluency are given a fluency reading book between Fluency level 1 and Fluency level 10.
Phonics
At St George's School we use Little Wandle as our chosen phonics framework. Whole class phonics is taught in EYFS and Key Stage 1. It may be used as an intervention in Key Stage 2 for children who need it. This programme provides a clear framework of progression beginning with simple phoneme identification, blending and segmenting to developing fluency in independent reading. The programme is supported with resources such as reading books, that are fully decodable and are sent home to support reading practice. These are also used within school.
The Little Wandle website has a whole host of wonderful videos to support parents with Phonics at home.
Check out the link:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Reading for pleasure
We are passionate about providing children with opportunities for reading for pleasure. Every Friday, children have ‘Drop Everything And Read’ where they can free read any text of their choosing in class, either individually or with a friend. Alongside this we also celebrate World Book Day, host travelling book fairs and run a number of reading clubs.
Reading Scrapbooks
Every class at St. George's School has a reading scrapbook. The children volunteer to take the scrapbook home and create a book review/recommendation for a book that they have recently read. These are then shared within the class and across the Key Stage to encourage others to read the same book. Take a look at some our the children's entries below.
