We love reading at SJS! It is not just essential and central to our curriculum, but it is a powerful tool for personal development and growth, intellectual stimulation and enrichment, and emotional well-being.

Why do we value reading?

We believe that reading is the foundation for everything in life.  It isn't just a skill, but something that has a life-long ability to be enjoyed. The purpose is two-fold: enjoyment and learning and when these overlap, the magic truly happens!

How will school support young readers?

Learning to read is about listening and understanding, as well as decoding print. Through hearing stories, children are exposed to a rich and wide vocabulary. This helps them develop their own vocabulary and improve their auditory understanding, which is vital as they begin to read. It’s important for them to understand how stories work as well. Even if your child doesn’t understand every word, they’ll hear new sounds, words and phrases which they can then try out, copying what they have heard.

Using the fantastic resources that we have in school, we strive to develop a love for reading and introduce students to different types of text, authors and genres.

VIPERS

Through the use of VIPERS, children will practise their vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising/sequencing skills. These sessions may take place in guided reading or within support sessions. 

Guided Reading

Guided reading sessions are planned into each timetable across school. Students will work in small groups with the teacher over the week, accessing materials at their level and for their enjoyment. These activities may be based around a text, grammar and construction of the genre, independent reading skills and the use of the library-which we all love!

Early Readers

In our school library we have two main fiction sections, upper and lower school.  Our shelves are bursting with high quality and accessible texts. These books are age appropriate and sequenced in alphabetical order, helping our students access their favourite authors and genres. We also have a range of early chapter books and stage reading material, including Rocket Phonics. 

Reading at home

As part of our school improvement plan, we are actively encouraging children to become passionate readers.  A part of this project for improvement, it involves developing a love for reading at home too. Modelling reading, encouraging reading of all kinds is so important to individual progress. 

We encourage our learners to aspire to 'read the rainbow'! Each student has a book marker, in their daily record, they can cross out how many reads they have undertaken, at 20 reads there is a certificate presented in Praise Assembly and a reward! Names can then be popped onto our reading rainbow as we follow the tokens around!