Reading and phonics at Christ Church School

At Christ Church, we aim to teach all children to become confident, fluent readers who are able to read to learn and want to read for pleasure. We use a carefully-structured phonics programme and an aligned reading scheme, which offers a range of fiction and non-fiction books matched to children’s phonic knowledge.

Phonics is taught systematically across Reception and Key Stage 1, starting as soon as children enter our school. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme with daily phonics sessions enabling children to learn quickly, building on and consolidating prior knowledge day by day.

In the early stages of learning to read, children take home a decodable reading book carefully matched to their phonics knowledge, as well as a picture book to share at home. We use the Collins BigCat for Little Wandle decodable books. We value the contribution parents make to the teaching of reading and the support they provide for their children by reading with them at home and sharing their home reading books. We hold reading and phonics workshops for parents in the Autumn term. These meetings give parents the opportunity to learn more about how they can best support their child’s reading progress.

Progress in phonics and reading is tracked carefully and regularly with additional ‘keep up’ support provided by trained staff for individuals and groups.

Reading has a high profile across the school at Christ Church: children love to read and share books suggestions with each other and their teachers. We aim to introduce children to a wealth of traditional and contemporary children’s literature. Every class enjoys a class book or story time each day and books are used as a stimulus for work in other curriculum areas as well as to extend vocabulary. We build reading for pleasure through activities such as World Book Day, book sales and swops, bookshop visits and a specific ‘reading for enjoyment’ support group.

You can find our reading suggestions for children of all ages here

You can find more information in our Reading Strategy document here