Reading at Eaves
English Coordinator: Mrs Leavesley and Mrs Clarke
“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” - Malorie Blackman.
“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world” - Malala Yousafzai
Our Reading Curriculum
Our shared reading curriculum is built around a carefully sequenced range of high-quality, age appropriate texts using Literacy Counts’ Ready Steady Read Together units of learning. This resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that incorporate metacognitive strategies and showcase diverse literature from a range of exceptional authors. It aims to inspire children and their families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information.
We intend that all pupils from Year 2 to Year 6, regardless of need, ability or background, have the opportunity to meet and where possible exceed the National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension. Ready Steady Read Together ensures that every pupil has access to highquality texts, enabling them to experience rich literature that develops fluency, vocabulary and deep understanding. Through explicit teacher modelling of expression, pace, intonation and prosody, children learn how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support comprehension.
Shared reading also provides regular opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and exploration of language. These approaches deepen comprehension while strengthening oracy skills. Crucially, our shared reading curriculum ensures that every child, regardless of their decoding ability, can access ambitious texts, engage meaningfully with literature and develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and learning.
What Reading looks like at Eaves.
At Eaves, we believe that reading is the key to unlocking learning across the curriculum and fostering a lifelong love of books. From the very beginning of a child’s journey with us, reading is taught through a carefully planned and progressive approach that supports every child to become a confident, fluent and enthusiastic reader.
In Early Years and Key Stage 1, we teach phonics through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. Daily phonics lessons are engaging, systematic and designed to build children’s confidence in decoding and blending sounds to read words accurately. Children who are still accessing phonics teaching take home fully decodable reading books that are carefully matched to their current phonic knowledge through the Little Wandle scheme. This ensures that children can practise and apply the sounds they have been taught, helping them to develop fluency, accuracy and confidence as readers.
From Year 2 to Year 6, reading is taught through the Ready Steady Read programme. Through high-quality texts, children develop their comprehension, vocabulary and reading fluency skills while exploring a wide range of genres and authors. Lessons encourage discussion, prediction and deeper thinking, enabling children to develop a rich understanding of what they read and a genuine enjoyment of literature.
Children who have a secure knowledge of phonics are able to access books from our school library, which are assessed through Renaissance Accelerated Reader. This allows children to choose books that match both their reading ability and interests, helping to nurture independence and motivation. Children enjoy reading books at home before completing assessment quizzes in school, which support teachers in monitoring progress and understanding. This approach encourages regular reading practice, builds comprehension skills and helps children develop positive reading habits and a lifelong love of reading.
Why is Reading important?
Reading is a vehicle in which children can explore the curriculum, the world around them and delve into the deepest depths of their own curiosity and wonder. The impact of a positive reading culture allows our children to experience the true value of the spoken and written word both within the classroom and the wider community including our local library, Chester Lane Library.
Our curriculum aims to create enthusiastic readers that are able to showcase their skills across the curriculum, taking risks and developing their ability to navigate their own independent learning journey. All of our children experience the joy that comes with reading a ‘real’ book regardless of their word reading ability exposing them to a world of rich vocabulary and high quality texts from Early years to Year 6.
Reading - Gallery
