Reading

At Grange, we believe reading underpins all aspects of learning. We aim to encourage children to foster a love of reading and a curiosity to learn more, ultimately developing proficient communicators and readers equipped for their future. We inspire a love of reading in various ways:

Guided Reading

Every child from Year 1 onwards takes part in guided reading lessons daily. At Grange, we use an holistic, talk based approach to reading alongside the direct teaching of reading skills through VIPERS questioning and long-term teaching of specific objectives. Regular reading and discussion of the text read are vital in developing children’s decoding, reading and comprehension skills. Children work together to read and understand texts appropriate for their reading attainment.

Each year group focuses on a different text every half term; our choices of literature aim to engage the children, enrich their understanding of the world they live in and empower them to grow as people and learners.

Reading for Pleasure

Studies show that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to children’s educational performance. Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading tests than those who don’t, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures.

At Grange, we encourage a reading for pleasure ethos through daily reading sessions called ‘DEAR’ time (‘Drop Everything And Read’), class story time, reading challenges and reading events such as World Book Day. All children have independent access to a wide variety of high-quality texts in their classroom reading areas and the school library. High-quality texts are also used in all aspects of teaching across the curriculum and provide children with the opportunities to extend and enrich their learning.

Home Reading

Every child is expected to read with an adult at home for 15 minutes every day. Teachers provide children with books from the classroom that are matched to their reading level. We encourage parents to be actively engaged in order to support children’s ongoing learning and development; sharing enthusiasm and enjoyment of reading will promote positive attitudes to learning.

Each class also has a scheduled weekly slot to visit the library where they can peruse at their leisure and choose a book to borrow and take home in addition to the books provided by their class teacher.