Our priority is to nurture a love of reading where children become confident, independent and lifelong readers. We recognise reading as being the key to all learning so, at Trinity, it is our mission to ensure that all children succeed in this area. We have high expectations of our learners and encourage children to read regularly and widely, for the purpose of both education and enjoyment. Through adult modelling, children are encouraged to recommend reading material to their peers as a way of articulating their views and feelings. Children are exposed to high quality texts by a range of authors through both guided reading sessions and through pre-planned cross-curricular topic links. We aim to inspire children through author visits, reading challenges, themed days and supported use of our library

During both key stages pupils’ interest and pleasure in reading is developed as they learn to read confidently and independently. This involves two dimensions: 

• Word reading
• Comprehension

At Key Stage One children take part in a daily dedicated phonics session as set out in the Letters and Sounds document. The teaching of phonics is emphasised in the early teaching of reading to beginners. This involves the speedy working out of unfamiliar words and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.

Skills continue to be developed in the following ways:

• Sharing books together as a whole class, group or in pairs
• Individual reading for Reception, Year One and Year Two with the class teacher or TA once a week
• Reading books are sent home and changed once a week
• Guided reading is introduced during Year One and continues in Year Two. From Year Two the children begin reading comprehension. At Key Stage Two there is a greater focus on guided reading and comprehension activities as opposed to hearing children individually read.

Other strategies include: 

• Whole class reading
• Guided reading
• Group reading
• One to one
• Paired reading

Each child will have a Reading Record where appropriate; the purpose of which is to record the reading experiences both at home and school. This will be an exercise book and teachers will provide an information sheet for parents on how best to hear their child read as is appropriate to their age or key stage. Writing during both key stages is linked to pupils’ interests and pleasure in writing is developed as they learn to write confidently and independently.

This involves two dimensions:

• Transcription (spelling and handwriting)
• Composition - A cursive script will be used throughout school and taught at Key Stage One in a dedicated weekly lesson and, as appropriate at Key Stage Two.
• In the Foundation Stage children will begin by using a multi-sensory approach e.g. water painting, drawing letters/shapes in sand/salt, paint, felt pens, large sheets of paper, chalks on the playground etc.
• During the year they will progress to using whiteboards and pens to practice individual letter formation.
• In the summer term Reception children will transfer handwriting to their writing books and practise sitting letters correctly on lines.
• In Year One children will practise the joined script for vowel digraphs.
• From Year Two onwards children will be taught to use a joined script.

Our detailed progression documents for reading can be found here:

• Word Reading - Decoding
• Reading Experience - range of reading, familiarity with texts and poetry and performance
• Comprehension - word meanings, understanding, inference, prediction, authorial intent, non-fiction and discussing reading

V - Vocabulary

I - Inference

P - Prediction

E - Explanation

R - Retrieval

S - Sequence/Summarise

Asking your child a range of questions when reading at home will develop their comprehension skills. Please find below documents for KS1 and KS2 question stems that will support questioning at home.