READING

At Winhills we are committed to ensuring that our pupils have a thorough grounding in the basic early skills of reading in order to create fluent readers by the time the children leave Year 6. We feel that it is also important that this process is fun and that the children quickly become confident learners. We teach synthetic phonics using Letters and Sounds and elements of Read Write Inc, which provides a structured and systematic approach to the teaching.

Throughout the school reading skills are taught daily - sometimes individually, sometimes to small groups and sometimes to larger groups. Once the children have moved through the early stages of phonics, they  are able to practise their skills by reading and taking home books from our colour 'Book Banded' reading scheme. This scheme has a wide range of different texts from various publishers, designed to give children experience of a variety of reading genres.  There are fiction and non-fiction books within each level. 

Once children can read fluently and with good understanding they self-select books for independent reading from the class collections. This usually begins towards the end of Year 2 or in Year 3.  The books they choose are banded under the 'Accelerated Reader' scheme which provides a fun comprehension quiz for each time they have finished reading a book. The associated software is used to encourage, manage and monitor children’s reading practice.

All children are encouraged to select books from the classroom or home to share with their parents to encourage a love of reading.