From their first week at St Mary’s we encourage all pupils to see themselves as a reader. They will be given a book bag with their own reading book and record and encouraged to read regularly both at home and at school.
At St Mary’s we use Oxford Reading Tree (ORT) as our core reading scheme in Reception and KS1, but because we don’t want children to think that these are the only books they can read we supplement this greatly with quality texts from other sources. Across school we value pupil voice and opinions to ensure we have a variety of media which inspire them to read and also involve them regularly in the purchase of challenging and varied texts for their age group. In addition, for supplementary reading and guided reading opportunities we use recommended quality texts for the appropriate age group.
At St Mary’s we use Letters and Sounds to teach phonics across Early Years and KS1. This allows phonics to be taught creatively and systematically and is also used within intervention for KS2 children with additional phonics needs.
We work closely with Durham County Council Library Service and all children will be enrolled in the town library on entry to the Reception class at St Mary’s. Regular visits from and to the local library are also embedded into our curriculum to foster an early love of reading and develop a strong community link.
From time to time some children will have a Lexia individualised programme which provides a structured approach to reading, spelling, grammar,punctuation and comprehension to support them. It tracks pupil progress and designs interventions when consolidation is required.
We also use Spelling Shed to provide a home-school link for parents/carers to become more involved with their child’s reading journey.
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