At St. Robert's Catholic First School, we believe that being able to read and write are the vital skills
that enable us to understand and express ourselves more effectively. A high-quality education in
English will teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas
and emotions to others.
Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually,
socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also
enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. All the skills of
language are essential to participating fully as a member of society. These skills set a clear path for
future learning. We passionately believe in helping children to develop not only the technical skills of
reading and writing, but also in engendering a love for literature and the different genres of writing.
The study of English develops children’s ability to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of
purposes, including the communication of their ideas, views and feelings. Children are enabled to
express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become enthusiastic and critical readers of
stories and poetry as well as of non-fiction and media texts. Children gain an understanding of how
language works by looking at its patterns, structures and origins. Children develop procedural and
semantic knowledge, providing a deeper, more sustainable understanding of the English curriculum
content where they are able to make connections to other subjects and develop a wider perspective of
their own world around them and the wider world.
Reading is an integral part of the curriculum at St. Robert’s, and it is our vision to ensure that all children receive the opportunity to read and engage in high quality, inspiring and relevant literature. Once phonics strategies are well embedded, the children learn to develop their accuracy, automaticity and prosody to ensure they are fluent and confident readers. They also continuously develop their vocabulary and comprehension skills in order to become reflective readers, enabling them to foster a long term love of reading and access a wide range of texts and learning experiences across the whole curriculum. We aim for children to be able to read widely, confidently and to a high standard in a range of subjects. We want children to foster a love of reading and acquire a wide vocabulary of written and spoken language.
The books that we choose to study are often linked to other subjects across the curriculum. By selecting books that pose these important cross curricular links, we are carefully designing a curriculum which enables children to learn more, remember more and make links to experiences from the wider world and across subjects. These texts, which form part of our school reading spine, are studied in class, as part of reading lessons or shared in daily story times.
The school uses The Read Write Inc phonetically decodable books printed by Oxford University Press, and in recent years we have invested heavily on extending and updating the reading books available to support pupil learning. This allows children right from Reception age, to engage in reading using their phonics knowledge. This then continues progressively from EYFS through KS1 where the scheme grows to include a wider range of sounds and vocabulary as well as new themes.
Once children are deemed to be ‘fluent readers,’ and have completed the scheme with good confidence, they are able to progress onto free choice reading. Each classroom, and our school library, offer a wide selection of varied books and older children are encouraged to choose a variety of genres and show their understanding through reading journal activities. Teachers use a variety of methods when reading with children in class including individual reading or whole class reading. These all allow teachers to assess, plan and deliver a high-quality but targeted reading curriculum throughout the school linked specifically to meet the children’s needs and experiences.
At St. Robert's we use a programme called Read Write Inc. Phonics to teach our children to read and write. We make sure every child can read the last set of phonic stories before they progress to our higher-level programmes, Comprehension and Spelling. Some children complete the programme in Year 1 and others in Year 2. Year 3 and 4 children who need extra support follow this programme too; struggling readers in Year 5 and 6 children follow a similar programme called Fresh Start.
During this time, we group children by their reading progress for 45 minutes every day and we re-assess children every half-term so we can place them in the group where they’ll make the most progress. We provide extra daily one-to-one sessions for children who need a bit of a boost to keep up.
