At Hamstel Infant and Nursery School we aim to promote a life-long love of Reading through providing all children with a rich reading culture through our themes, environments and encouraging Reading for Pleasure in school and at home.  Alongside learning phonics and applying these skills to independent reading we believe that all children have the right to enjoy books and have access to a wide range of quality books.  We pride ourselves on providing the children with a range of high quality texts to enrich the children’s learning and love for books, that will increase their enjoyment for reading, further develop their vocabulary and book talk and give the children a deeper understanding of texts.

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Comprehension

 

Comprehension skills start with book talk and are embedded all the way through the Reading curriculum.  We begin to develop comprehension skills with all children in the EYFS with the use of book talk and simple questions about the book they are reading or sharing.  As the children move through KS1 and further into Year 2 the development of comprehension skills is explicitly planned for through the use of high quality texts and standalone comprehension lessons once the children come off the RWINC phonic programme.  The children are encouraged to develop their vocabulary, discuss deeper meaning of texts whilst enhancing their comprehension skills both verbally and through writing.  Reading skills are continued to be developed through the wider curriculum.

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Reading for Pleasure

 

All children at Hamstel Infant and Nursery School have opportunities to read for pleasure in rich social environments.  It is important that children understand that reading is a pleasure and not a chore. To support this belief, children have access to a wide range of books in which they can select from in their classrooms. All children are able to visit our school library on a weekly basis to choose a book they can take home and share with a member of their family as many times as they like before they return it the following week.

 

 

Story Times

 

Providing opportunities to read aloud to children through story times is a very important part of the children’s day and learning.  All children benefit from hearing adults reading aloud to them in school, it allows language to be modelled and developed, the understanding of books to be discussed as well as sharing the enjoyment of a wealth of books.  Story times usually take part in the comfort of the classroom or the library, sometimes by the adult sharing a chosen book or other times the children may vote for a book.  The children enjoy building up a repertoire of favourite and common books as well having opportunities to hear new and exciting books.