Reading
At Holland House school, all children will leave our school being able to read with confidence, accuracy and fluency.
At Holland House, all children will leave our school with a high quality education in English. We strive to give every child the necessary tools to be able to communicate effectively and creatively through written and spoken language that will equip them with a passion for lifelong learning. Through the English curriculum, we will help children to develop the knowledge and skills that will enable them to speak confidently, read with fluency and expression, write enthusiastically and appreciate the value of rich and vibrant literature.
Reading
Holland House School is determined that every child will learn to read, regardless of background, needs or abilities. We want them to be fluent, confident readers where stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction are chosen to develop their vocabulary, language comprehension and engender a genuine love of reading with a keen interest in a range of texts. At Holland House, we do not take it for granted that children will simply learn to read. We prioritise it. We teach it and we teach it well through expert teaching of early reading. Children will learn to value and enjoy books and become life-long readers with a desire to read for pleasure. We will encourage the children to have a love of reading by using quality texts and themes across the curriculum that excites and engages them. Through a range of speaking and listening experiences, we want them to develop a habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and research.
By the time they leave, our aim is that every child will meet or exceed age-related expectations and will have a good knowledge of a range of authors and stories. We aim for every child to leave our setting with a love of literature and to be able to read easily, fluently and with good understanding. The breadth of texts on offer will aim to broaden their minds and experiences to allow them to empathise with the world in which they live and support the development of their cultural capital. They will have acquired the skills they need to read independently and be able to fully engage in their future learning. Reading a range of rich texts will indeed support children to develop their wider knowledge of the world around them and make links between the knowledge they already acquire.
From the beginning of reception and throughout key stage 1, children will be taught systematic, synthetic phonics to enable them to develop the skills necessary to decode and begin to comprehend reading. They will gain success by progressing through books that are accurately matched and sequenced to the phonics scheme and then, when they understand phonics, given a wide variety of age appropriate books that will widen experience and vocabulary.
Our intention is to follow in Matilda’s thoughts of “I wonder what I will read next?”
Please click below to find out more about Reading at Holland House.
Phonics and Reading is delivered through Read Write Inc.
In our school, phonics is taught across EYFS and KS1 as well as in intervention sessions to keep up and address gaps in their knowledge of sounds and ability to blend with pace. In KS1 we do this using the RWI (https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/read-write-inc-phonics--1/). This is a scheme, developed by Ruth Miskin, which provides a structured and systematic approach to teaching Literacy. It is used by more than a quarter of the UK's primary schools and is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. We teach in this way because, research shows that, when phonics is taught in a structured way – starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the most complex – it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. According to the DfE (Department for Education), ‘almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics, will learn the skills they need to tackle new words’. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment.
In our school we realise the importance of Phonics as it provides children with the building blocks needed to become successful readers. They are taught how to recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes, identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make (digraphs and trigraphs) – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’ and then blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word. Children can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words they hear or see.
We LOVE to Read
