Reading
At Mill View we believe that reading is the cornerstone of a child's success, laying the foundation for lifelong learning and unlocking limitless opportunities. From developing essential language skills to fostering imagination and critical thinking, the ability to read opens doors to a world of knowledge and possibilities.
Our primary goal is to ensure our children see themselves as readers, able to confidently read a range of texts. We want our children to read for pleasure, comprehension, knowledge acquisition and to recognise the worth of the printed word.
We actively foster an environment where children can cultivate their own preferences for books and share and recommend their reading experiences. In addition to books aligned with their phonics and reading abilities, children are encouraged to select books they genuinely enjoy. These "reading for pleasure" books are taken home, where parents and carers may need to provide support, including reading these books aloud. We firmly believe in nurturing evry child's independence and curiosity towards books, recognising the invaluable role these qualities play in their lifelong relationship with reading.
Amongst other things we have -
- Recommended reads
- Engaging and inviting book areas
- Mystery book draws each week to promote regular reading at home
- A range of high quality diverse texts
- Organised libraries in Key Stage 1 and 2
- World Book Day celebrations which start off with a full week of Reading Cafes
- Daily story times
We place high importance on improving children's reading fluency as an essential ingredient for comprehension; fluent readers can understand content more fully as they can devote cognitive resources to comprehension rather than decoding. Fluency acts as a bridge between word recognition and comprehension, making it a vital skill in reading development.
Reading is taught daily across school through a mixture of individual reading, guided reading and whole class shared reading.
Phonics
In Nursery our phonics centres on fostering a foundational understanding of sounds, letters, and spoken language. Through playful activities like listening games, rhymes, and sensory experiences, children begin to develop phonemic awareness by recognising and manipulating individual sounds in words. While formal letter learning may not commence until later, children are introduced to letters through exploratory activities like puzzles and crafts. Multisensory approaches, such as tactile experiences and movement-based activities, engage children in phonics learning, while book exploration and oral language development lay the groundwork for later literacy skills. At Mill View we emphasize a play-based approach, incorporating parental involvement and fostering a supportive learning environment that encourages curiosity and exploration, ultimately nurturing the early stages of phonics readiness and literacy development.
In Reception and Year 1 children follow a systematic synthetic phonics programme called Floppy's Phonics. This is a carefully structured progressive scheme for teaching phonic skills whilst also enriching their vocabulary and language comprehension. Reception and Year 1 have a daily Phonics lesson. Teachers continue to use play based and multi sensory approaches to enhance learning.
Home reading books are closely matched to each child’s phonics level to ensure they can decode the books they take home independently and develop their confidence and fluency as readers.
For those children who still require targeted Phonics teaching, this will be a priority as they move into Year 2 or Key Stage 2 through targeted intervention and quality first teaching.
Reading at Home
Reading at home is a vital part of making sure that your children become confident and fluent readers. We provide advice and support for our families to ensure they understand our expectations and how they can best support their children with their reading at home.
In Key Stage 2, children choose home readers from our carefully graded library to ensure books are accurately matched to their reading fluency and comprehension level so that they can read them independently.
Shared Reading
Shared reading is a teaching tool that allows reading to be taught on a whole class basis. We use the Steps to Read scheme which uses high quality texts that are pitched to a higher level than the children could access independently to push their learning forward. This scheme is carefully sequenced, coherent and progressive. Language rich texts allow children to build up a wider vocabulary and understanding of how texts are organised. All elements of comprehension are taught sequentially across each academic year and there is a clear focus on the skills and strategies needed to be a proficient and confident reader. The texts used in the first half of each term link directly to each year group’s overarching theme to enhance cross curricular knowledge and subject specific vocabulary. Engaging texts help to promote a love of learning and include poetry, non-fiction and fiction.
Guided Reading
In Reception, Key Stage 1 and for those children in Key Stage 2 who require it, guided reading sessions take place once a week for each child. The guided sessions are an opportunity for children to read the same text together in a small group with an adult, to focus on specific year group expectations for reading and to teach children reading strategies they can apply to all books.
Ready, Steady, Write
Our writing scheme Ready, Steady, Write enhances children’s understanding of the written word as they read and analyse each new text as it is introduced.