Reading
We have a real passion for reading at St Joseph’s and want children to experience good quality books in school. We have recently purchased a substantial number of new books for our school library alongside books to support the teaching of reading. Reading unlocks potential and reading for pleasure is central to our core principles in the reading provision at St Joseph’s. The children are taught phonics and spelling using the recommended synthetic phonics approach through the ‘Letters and Sounds’ guidelines. They are taught to read using complementary books which support a wide range of reading strategies. Books used include books from different published reading schemes, including Phonic Readers (fully phonically decodable), Oxford Reading Tree (both phonically decodable and non-phonically decodable), alongside other published schemes and real books. Books are banded into colours and children progress through the bands matched to their phonic and reading development. Children take home a phonically decodable book which links to their phonic development and the phase they are currently being taught, as well as non-phonically decodable books and library books.
