PHONICS AND EARLY READING INTENT 

At Carter’s Charity School, we believe that the teaching of reading is vital to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves.

Our reading curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading and covers all of the National Curriculum for Reading. We encourage the behaviours that they will need to be discerning readers as they read frequently and widely using self-regulation strategies and discuss what they read. This curriculum is delivered through synthetic phonics (Twinkl Phonics), a linked approach to shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud every day.

All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers. It is important that children are motivated to read at home regularly; when opportunities for reading increase, so does their fluency and stamina, which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is reciprocal. Furthermore, we know that reading pleasure is beneficial not only for reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing. Therefore, we work hard to foster a love of independent reading and build communities of engaged readers.

We understand the significance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills, so we endeavour to build a home-school partnership, which enables parents and carers to have the confidence to support their children with reading at home. Children through school will take home two books each time, one matched to their reading ability and one for pleasure. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love for reading and not only giving children opportunities to read in English lessons, but in the wider curriculum too. Due to lack of local public libraries, we ensure that we have a up to date school library, reading areas across school and outdoor reading areas are available for social time.