Reading

Reading is a key priority at Aston. We see it as the central area or the key to the whole currculum.

Through reading, we encourage opportuities to highlight our school values of respect, inspire and achieve.  Books provide a wealth of opportunities to do this...for example we have a set of 'little people, big dreams' books https://littlepeoplebigdreams.com/ which are perfect for inspiring children to be who they want to be, respecting challenges and barriers that the famous people discussed in the texts may have overcome, whilst celebrating their achievements.

We encourage our children to love reading from the word go and embrace the philosophy 'the more you read, the more you know'. 

Each class has a defined reading area where reading for pleasure books are kept.  Children are encouraged to borrow these as frequently as they wish.   

We also have a school library which is well stocked and children are able to borrow from here too. 

As a school we promote the 50 recommended reads, which can be found on your childs class page or by following the link: https://www.booksfortopics.com/booklists/recommended-reads/ 

We also promote love for reading through 'Strive for Five' which is an initiative to ensure our readers are encouraged to read at least 5 times a week. If they do, they are put into a weekly draw to attend 'Hot Chocolate' Friday' with Mrs Plant our headteacher. This in turn has developed a love for 'book talk' with children enthusiastically discussing their current read, any recommendations, etc. 

In Early years and year 1, phonics is a key part of teaching your child to read.  (Further details can be found on the associated phonics page within the reading tab here on the website.)

Our Phonics scheme is 'Song of Sounds' and the reading scheme aligned to this  is 'Collins Big Cat Phonics'.

Collins Big Cat phonics reading scheme follows the sounds your child will learn in the same order they are taught within the phonics scheme. 

Each week, your child will bring home a text with sounds they are familar with and growing increasingly secure in. This reading book is for you to share and support you child in their reading journey/development. 

Support from school via the 'meet the teacher' meeeting at the start of the school year, can help you to navigate this important and vital life skill. The books encourage in the early stages to 'walk and talk' through the text, looking at the front cover and the illustrations on each page.  It suggests pre-teaching any of the tricky words to them before reading the book.  It also provides adults with question prompts to check that the children can read and decode the words and understand what they are reading.

Year 1 and 2:

Guided reading and individual reading of the structured Big Cat Phonics takes place across the week.  

Pathways to Read

Children take part in  whole class shared reading lessons from years 2-6. These lessons use a rich resource bank of texts to help and support comprehension in addition to the basic reading skills.  There are also many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary hrough the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.  

You will find the end of year expectations for reading for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.

We also use Pathways to Write to drive our writing curriculum. This aligns with Pathways to Read ensuring meaningful links for our pupils with texts and topics that are used across Literacy, Humanities and Science.

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