Acquiring the skill of reading is “key to success in education and an essential life skill” (Rose, 2009).

At Boyne Hill, it is our mission that every child will be able to read with confidence and enthusiasm by the time they leave us at the end of Year 2. Our love of books and stories is shared and promoted from Nursery upwards. Being read to and read with develops emotional experiences, listening skills and increases our pupils’ vocabulary.

Learning to read is a complex process. It involves learning how to decipher print (decoding) and understanding what the print means (comprehending).

Children learn how to decode as part of an effective Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme taught in school. They learn to comprehend words through explanation of new vocabulary. When children are read to and read with, and new words are taught and explained, their bank of stored words (lexicon) increases. They are then more able to recognise words without having to decode each one and thus their fluency (speed and flow of reading) improves.

Children are taught and encouraged to talk about the books they are reading. They learn about genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry); they learn about the features of a book (blurb, title, page numbers, heading, sub-heading, captions, index, glossary, setting, characters, author, illustrator); they learn how to predict (what might happen next?) and use inference (why did they say that/do that?); they learn how to retrieve information which demonstrates a more secure understanding of what they have read (comprehension) and they learn to make comparisons between books and stories either by the same or different authors.

Children’s reading ability and progress is carefully monitored by the class teacher and levels of challenge are increased when they feel the child is ready.

Learning to read and reading to learn

• Our pupils will bring home a guided reading book linked to the phonics they are learning in school. It will have been shared in class in a small group with the teacher or teaching assistant and will be exchanged at least twice a week. We ask that you listen to your child read the book at home, preferably every day, and write a comment in their Reading Record book.
• Our pupils visit the school library once a week and will bring home a book of their choice to share with you. They also have access to the Class Library where they can choose a reading book and either keep it for the week or swap it every day. This is their choice.
• Our playground has a micro-library so pupils can enjoy a book during their playtime.
• Each class has a 'book corner' which the children have access to at different times of the day and stories are read to the children to promote the joy of listening, either during snack time and/or at the end of the day.

We cannot stress enough how important talk and stories are in developing children's vocabulary and language. Below are the Top Ten Tips to help you, as parents, when reading stories to your children.

Our guided reading books are organised into coloured bands, in line with our SSP, and from a range of publishers including Reading Planet Rocket Phonics, Oxford Reading Tree, Rigby Star, Collins Big Cat, All Aboard, Discovery World and National Geographic.