Reading at St Michael’s CE Primary School

Intent

At St Michael’s, we strive to do our best and are committed to developing a love of reading in every child. We believe that reading is the key to unlocking the wider curriculum and a vital life skill that opens doors to future learning, creativity, and wellbeing.

Our aim is to ensure all children:

• Become confident, fluent, and independent readers.

• Develop a deep understanding and enjoyment of a wide range of texts across all genres.

• Build strong foundations in early reading through a consistent and engaging approach to phonics.

• Are equipped with comprehension skills that help them understand, analyse and enjoy what they read.

• Experience high-quality texts that reflect our school values, promote diversity, and are relevant to our community and world.

Implementation

Phonics (Little Wandle)

We use Little Wandle to deliver daily, systematic phonics teaching from the start of Nursery. This Department for Education validated programme follows a clear progression, helping children develop the knowledge and skills to become confident, fluent readers and accurate spellers.

• Daily teaching: Children in Reception and Year 1 receive daily phonics lessons, with continued teaching and targeted support in Year 2 and beyond for those who need it.

• Consistent approach: Lessons use clear routines, consistent language and regular practice to help children recognise sounds, blend them to read words and segment words for spelling.

• Assessment and support: Regular assessment identifies gaps in children’s understanding. Additional ‘Keep-up’ support helps children consolidate their learning and make progress.

• Reading practice: Children apply their phonics knowledge through reading fully decodable books carefully matched to the sounds they know. Reading practice develops accuracy, expression and understanding.

• Reading at home: Children take home matched decodable books to practise their reading, build fluency and grow in confidence. We encourage families to reread these books together regularly.

Guided Reading (VIPERS)

From Year 2 onwards, we use the VIPERS approach (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval, and Summarising/Sequencing) to explicitly teach reading comprehension skills.

• Texts are carefully selected to match age, reading level and the needs of our school demographic. These include modern fiction, classic literature, non-fiction, poetry and culturally diverse texts.

• Guided Reading sessions are timetabled daily and taught in small groups or whole class formats depending on the age group and focus.

• Teachers use high-quality questioning and model reading behaviours to develop deep thinking and discussion.

• Vocabulary is explicitly taught and revisited to help children develop strong language comprehension.

• Across the curriculum, reading is embedded through the use of high-quality texts in subjects such as history, science and RE.

Impact

The impact of our reading and phonics curriculum is that:

• Children learn to read fluently and with enjoyment, accessing books that inspire, challenge and reflect their world.

• Pupils develop strong comprehension skills, enabling them to engage confidently with a wide range of texts.

• Reading is celebrated as a central part of our school culture, and children are motivated to read for pleasure at school and at home.

• Children talk about books enthusiastically, make thoughtful predictions, and explain their thinking using the language of reading.

• By the end of Key Stage 2, children are ready to meet the demands of secondary school reading and have a lifelong love of reading.

Regular assessment, including phonics tracking, reading fluency checks, and comprehension tasks, ensures we closely monitor progress and provide tailored support where needed. We celebrate reading through book events, author visits, and by creating inviting reading spaces across the school.