Reading
At St Mewan we believe reading is key to success for children in all subjects and areas of life, both now and in the future. It also opens a the door to a whole world of enjoyment, imagination and possibilities. Therefore, we try to do all we can to support parents on helping their children to read at home. We hope the documents below will help you in supporting your child with their reading whilst at St Mewan.
In EYFS and KS1 we follow the RWInc programme for the teaching of phonics and early reading. Information packs are sent to parents regarding this when their child joins the school and RWI parents sessions are held in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 during the Autumn term of each year. Below you will find the information on how we teach phonics and how you can support your children with phonics and early reading at home.
Reading books in KS1 are sent home at the start of every new reading cycle, which, dependent on their group is every 1, 3 or 5 days. These books are all matched to pupils phonic ability. Sometimes parents question why we send the same book for several days. This is best practise in order for children to move from decoding words letter by letter, to reading for understanding and enjoyment. The repetition of a text for a short period helps to build confidence and higher level reading skills.
In addition to this, we send home library books which are texts pupils can share with a parent. Parents should read these to a child and allow them to join in if they wish but the entire text should not be read by the child as they may be beyond their phonic ability. Information about both books can be found below.
We have also included some recommended reads for each age group that you may like to consider purchasing or borrowing from the school or St Austell library to develop your child's reading and love of story at home. Regularly updated recommendations of new books for each age group, can also be found at Bookfortopics.com on the link below.
Supporting Reading in Key Stage 2
In KS2 we use Accelerated Reader to assess pupils reading ability and give them real books at an appropriate level for their ability in order to help them progress. We believe this helps them to Read for Pleasure. Pupils are provided with a reading record where they record their reading which also details their reading level (we call this a ZPD) and their reading target for the term. They also take a quiz in school once they have a read a book, which helps us track their progress and regularity of reading. We recommend that children read for 20 minutes a day in both KS1 and KS2. Below you will find information on recommended reads for each year and how to support your child with their reading in KS2.
