Reading Newsletter

Dear All,

Welcome to the first reading newsletter of this academic year. For our new families, this half termly reading newsletter is dedicated to reading news across the school and is a platform for us to share book recommendations and tips for how you can immerse your child in reading at home to complement the work we do in school from the very start of phonics where children are learning to decode through to their journey as independent readers. 

If you haven't already, and your child is in Early Years Foundation Stage or Key Stage 1 and still on their phonics journey, please join the phonics parents and carers training on Thursday 6th November. The training is virtual in order to support your attendance for those with young families. The training talks through the challenges children face when learning to read, the process on how we teach reading in school and how you can support your child with learning to read at home since practice really is key! If your child is still on the phonics pathway then you will have received further information on the progress that your child has made in reading so far this year. 

We are extremely fortunate to have very well stocked class libraries due to regular school investment and money that we distribute from fundraising into new book purchases. Even though we are not lucky enough to have the space for one whole school library, our key stage ones host a range of titles which are frequently updated. Our children can recommend books to be purchased using QR codes dotted around the school.

In Key Stage Two news, we are delighted that we have some new Reading Ambassadors to welcome to the existing team. Some of them have introduced themselves later in this newsletter. It's fantastic to have such an enthusiastic group to help promote reading across the school! Also, if your child in is Key Stage 2, you should have received a letter before half term with your child's reading fluency score. Reading fluency is critically important because it acts as the bridge between word recognition (decoding) and reading comprehension. Thank you for supporting your children by continuing to listen to them reading aloud and discussing books with them even as they become independent readers.

On Wednesday 22nd October, Upper Key Stage Two joined the multi-award-winning, local author, Hannah Gold for an amazing national online book launch for her new book The Lone Husky. Hannah's first book The Last Bear was Blue Peter Children's Book of the Year and Waterstones Children's Book of the Year, and since then she has written The Lost Whale, Finding Bear and Turtle Moon. The children took part in an interactive quiz and Hannah shared exciting stories of her real-life research that she carries out to support her writing. The children gained lots of inspiration for their own narrative work.

It was lovely to see such a fantastic turn out for our parents and carers 'Stop, Drop and Read' session last half term. The children loved having you into school to read to them with the addition of any siblings, or the opportunity for them to read to you in school. We are already looking forward to our next ones on Thursday 5th March (which is also World Book Day!) and Friday 8th May - we may even be able to take our reading outside during the May event!

Enjoy exploring the rest of this newsletter for reading tips, an introduction from some of our Reading Ambassadors and the menu at the top for even more about reading!

Kind regards,

Mrs Smith and Mrs Francis 

Reading Community

Find out what our families are reading together at home.