All Saints' C of E Primary School

The All Saints’ Way…

Reading in the Early Years

At All Saints’ C of E Primary, we promote early reading at every opportunity both indoors and outdoors.  We believe it underpins children’s natural curiosity of storytelling and enjoyment of books. Within every area of the classroom, we have carefully planned exciting and engaging texts that support prior knowledge as well as exposure to new skills.

We plan carefully for reading throughout our continuous provision, enabling early sound recognition throughout.

In Reception, we teach individual phonemes for both reading and writing during our daily phonics session.  In addition, we share a love of reading with high quality texts and traditional stories, songs, poems and rhymes through the Poetry Basket.  Through Tales Toolkit, children in EYFS also develop their Communication and Language skills by learning how to structure their stories leading into writing.

Reading Curriculum Intent

Discovering God, Learning Together and Achieving Our Best

At All Saints’ C of E Primary School, reading is at the heart of our curriculum. It is a fundamental life skill that opens doors to all areas of learning and personal growth. Rooted in our Christian values of Discovering God, Learning Together, and Achieving Our Best, our reading curriculum is designed to ensure that every child flourishes as a reader—spiritually, academically, and emotionally.

Discovering God
We believe that through reading, children can encounter deep truths, reflect on their beliefs, and explore the wonder of God’s world. From Bible stories to inspiring literature, pupils are encouraged to discover God's presence in narratives of hope, courage, love, and redemption. Reading becomes a pathway for spiritual development and a deeper understanding of themselves and others.

Learning Together
We foster a shared love of reading across our school community. Through class novels, book talk, and rich discussion, children read, respond, and grow together. They learn to listen to different perspectives and express their ideas clearly and respectfully. We celebrate the joy of shared stories and the connections they create across generations, cultures, and experiences.

Achieving Our Best
We are committed to ensuring that no child is left behind on their reading journey. High expectations, quality teaching, and targeted support enable all pupils to progress, with a particular focus on raising the number of Greater Depth readers. Our ambition is for every child to become a confident, fluent reader who is equipped to read both for pleasure and to learn.

We want our pupils to develop a courageous curiosity in their reading—to explore new genres, tackle challenging texts, and read with purpose. They are taught to make informed choices, discuss their preferences, and take risks that lead to growth. We aim to develop readers who can:

• read with fluency, understanding, and expression;

• engage deeply with texts and reflect thoughtfully on what they read;

• make connections across literature, life, and faith;

• articulate their opinions about books, authors, and genres with confidence;

• use reading as a tool to gain knowledge and insight across the curriculum.

Ultimately, we aim to nurture children who love to read and read to learn—discovering God’s truth, learning together as a community, and striving always to achieve their very best.

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Reading Implementation

Reading, early language and phonics skills are prioritised.  There is a sharp focus on the reading curriculum, which is planned to develop children’s love and enjoyment of reading, developing their decoding skills, fluency and comprehension. Comprehension skills are explicitly taught with ample opportunity for children to predict, infer, discuss the effect on the reader and make links.

Staff use Focus English to guide our sequencing and progression in applying phonics, reading for pleasure, accuracy, fluency and understanding.

Phonics, using the Read Write Inc resource, and the practice of reading are tightly linked. The staff regularly read to children in a way that excites and engages them, introducing new ideas, concepts and vocabulary. Explicit links to phonics are made throughout the curriculum so that children know more and remember more. 

All our children are exposed to progressive, high quality texts across a range of genres.  We use imaginative and creative lessons in order to ignite children’s passion for reading throughout a range of teaching styles such as DEAL strategies (Drama Engagement & Active Learning), role play and classroom discussion. We use two quality approaches which emphasise reading into writing (Jane Considine and Read to Write units of work) both of which have a progressive, sequential approach using high quality and engaging texts. We also use Shared Reading and Guided Reading at different points throughout the school.

In Key Stage 1 and Early Years, we place great importance on the teaching of phonics.  During the daily lesson, children will revisit previous learning, learn new skills, practise and apply their knowledge in an engaging and stimulating environment.

All our children have daily opportunities to read a variety of books in school, including regularly with an adult.  Each classroom has a class reading area and all children can access rich texts across the room throughout the day. Our resources are enhanced by using the Cheshire Library Service. We also have a school library which each class visits regularly.

Children take books home to read.  This may be a book to improve their reading skills or it may be a book to read for pleasure. At the start of their reading journey, all children will be given a decodable book, specifically matched to the phonics level they are working at as well as regularly being offered a book to share at home for pleasure.

We regularly base our teaching and learning on relevant DfE documents and research completed by the Education Endowment Foundation.

Impact

As a result of our curriculum and our constant push for reading for pleasure, our school is full of enthusiastic readers who understood what they have read and are confident when showcasing their skills.