At St John’s C of E Primary School, reading is a top priority and at the heart of our curriculum. It is our intention to ensure that by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education and for lifelong learning.

We therefore intend to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop: knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live; to establish an appreciation and love of reading; to gain knowledge across the curriculum; and develop their comprehension skills. We are committed to providing vocabulary rich reading material.

• The systematic teaching of phonics has a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. Phonics is taught daily to all children in Foundation Stage, Year 1 and those in Year 2 and beyond who have not passed phonics screening in Year 1.
• Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them.
• Timely intervention is planned for those children who are working below expected levels as soon as needs are identified.
• The school ensures all texts are accurately matched to pupil ability, to ensure progression and challenge for all children.
• Books are carefully selected by teachers with the knowledge of how they link to other areas of the curriculum.
• All children across EYFS and Key Stage 1 take part in weekly Guided Reading sessions. These sessions are to embed children’s phonics knowledge and the application of phonics into reading. Teaching specific vocabulary is also a focus as well as reading with prosody. The importance of re-reading texts over again for fluency is recognised here. 
• All children across Key Stage 2 take part in daily Whole Class Reading sessions. All teachers use these to introduce pupils to a range of genres and to teach a range of techniques which enable children to comprehend the meaning of what they read. Teaching specific vocabulary is also a focus as well as reading with prosody. 
• All classrooms have their own class reading areas with topic themed books, and books that the children have shown interest in or recommended to others. 
• Any children not making the expected progress have 1:1 or small group intervention in discussion with the SENDCo.