At Westwood Academy, we understand that in order to access all learning it is vital that every child can read. We promote the lifelong love of reading through regular events with a reading focus e.g. World Book Day, Readathon, author visits or celebrations and promote the use of our library extensively through regular sessions for every child, competitions based on the use of the library and reading, and through a weekly library club run by the head teacher. We use a mixture of books and e-books (provided through Bug Club) as well as Essex Library Services to offer children a choice of interesting and engaging reading material that inspires them to consolidate the reading skills they learn in school through reading at home. We encourage parents to listen to their’ children read regularly: questioning what children have read to check comprehension (that they understand what they have read) and inference (that they can use reasoning based upon what they have read to explain something) are particularly useful ways to support children with reading at home.
In order to teach reading, we use a number of strategies. A summary of these can be found in this document:
Our Approach to Reading and Phonics.
Resources.
Below are resources that may be useful in supporting children with reading.
To hear how to pronounce the sounds your child learns, click on the link below:
http://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/demos/aaPrimary/Literacy/phonemes/Alphabet.html
The following are lists of suggested questions that can be used to extend children’s reading skills at home.
Questions to ask your Reception Child when reading to them
Questions to ask your Key Stage 1 Child when reading to them
Questions to ask your Key Stage 2 Child when reading to them
The following are a list of the sounds taught during the reception year and that children are generally expected to know as they enter year 1, as well as high frequency words to practice reading and spelling.
Sounds children need to know by the end of Reception
Reception High Frequency and Tricky words for reading and spelling
High Frequency Words – Reception & KS1 – Pg 1
High Frequency Words – Reception & KS1 – Pg 2
Bug Club.
At Westwood we use an online reading resource called Bug Club. It is a finely-levelled reading scheme, which ensures that all children can find reading material at exactly the right level of challenge for them. Bug Club has hundreds of up to date and engaging online books for children, from Reception to Key Stage 2. Activities are provided throughout each book to support children with their comprehension and inference skills.
To access Bug Club follow this link and type in your child’s username and password (available from the class teacher if you have forgotten it):
The following is a copy of the Bug Club Workshop presentation:
Bug Club Workshop for Parents 28.01.15
The following website (Mr Thorne) may help you with supporting your child with the teaching of phonics, grammar or punctuation: