Learning to Read

Learning to read

At St Michael’s, we aim to create a community of readers with the skills to become independent and reflective readers, thinkers, and learners, both at school and for life. We aim to inspire children with a lifelong love of books and reading, because we understand the central importance of reading to children’s wellbeing and academic success.

Our main aims are as follows:

• Instil children with a love of reading that lasts for their life time, share with them an enthusiasm for children’s literature and help children to recognise the value of reading as a life skill.
• Encourage children to become enthusiastic and reflective readers by introducing them to good quality books, from a variety of cultures and in a range of different styles and formats.
• Ensure our children have secure phonic skills and use a phonics first approach to reading.
• Develop our children’s understanding of a variety of text types including non-fiction, fiction, poetry and drama.

• Develop children’s confidence, fluency, and independence when reading for different purposes.
• Ensure that children are taught the key skills of reading to understand (using vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, sequencing and summarising) through a coherent and progressive reading curriculum across the school.
• Develop children’s abilities to reflect on and have an interest in what they have read and the language and punctuation choices made by the author.
• Use drama and role-play, where appropriate, to immerse children in the text and help to develop a depth of understanding.

We aim to meet these aims by creating a curriculum which balances developing a love of books and reading with rigorous skills teaching, from early phonics to complex comprehension and fluency strategies.