Reading consists of two dimensions:
- Word reading
- Comprehension
The Curriculum at St Paul’s will help learners:
- develops pupils competence in both dimensions
- Develops skilled word reading which involves speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words
- Speedy recognition of familiar printed words
- Understand that letters on a pafe represent sounds in spoken words
- Use phonics in the early teaching of reading to beginners when they start school
- Develop good comprehension from linguistic knowledge and on knowledge of the world
- Develop comprehension through experience of high-quality discussion with the teacher
- Develop comprehension from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction
- Be encouraged to read widely across fiction and non-fiction to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live
- To establish a love of reading
- Gain knowledge across the curriculum
- Increase their vocabulary they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech
- Develop imagination
The curriculum in reading ensures that all learners:
- Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words
- Respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes (letters or groups of letters) for all 40+ phonemes, including, where applicable, alternative sounds for graphemes
- Read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words containing GPCs that have been taught
- Read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
- Read words containing taught GPCs and –s, –es, –ing, –ed, –er and –est endings
- Read other words of more than one syllable that contain taught GPCs
- Read words with contractions [for example, I’m, I’ll, we’ll], and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)
- Read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words
- Re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.
To develop these characteristics they will explore the following key concepts:
- Read words accurately: This concept involves decoding and fluency.
- Understand texts: This concept involves understanding both the literal and more subtle nuances of texts.