READING at High Bickington C of E Academy.

"Reading is fun!"

"Reading is fantastic!"

"Reading is educational!"

"Reading is for everyone!"

Reading is a fundamental life skill and it is essential that children become fluent, expressive readers and are able to understand what they read in order to be able to access work across the curriculum. It is also important that children develop a love of reading for pleasure. Reading is also a core subject within the National Curriculum. 

The programmes of study for reading at key stages 1 and 2 consist of two dimensions: 

• word reading 
• comprehension (both listening and reading). 

Skilled word reading involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Underpinning both is the understanding that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. This is why phonics is emphasised in the early teaching of reading to beginners when they start school. Good comprehension draws from linguistic knowledge (in particular of vocabulary and grammar) and on knowledge of the world. Comprehension skills develop through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher, and at home, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction. All pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum. Reading widely and often increases pupils’ vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Reading also feeds pupils’ imagination and opens up a treasure-house of wonder and joy for curious young minds.  

It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education.