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Smitham Primary School

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Curriculum

Reading at Smitham

Reading is a vital skill that will support children’s learning across the whole curriculum at Smitham. As a school, we will ensure that the children are taught fluency, accuracy and understanding through a variety of cross-curricular learning opportunities. Above all, we want the children at Smitham to become enthusiastic, independent, reflective readers and we want to instil in them a love of reading that will last a lifetime.

Take a look at the Smitham Reading Newsletter.

Smitham Reading Newsletter Summer 2023.pdf

Here are a number of hints and tips for you when reading with your child at home. We hope you find them useful!

Reading In The Home

- Make reading visible; have books available in your home.

- Children should be able to read nine out of ten words without difficulty; the books your child brings home should be at your child’s level.

- Share books every day; find 15-20 minutes a day to read.

- Remember you are your child’s role model for reading.

- Talk about books.

- Play reading/phonics games with your child.

- Sometimes your child may be tired and just want to be read to, that’s fine.

- Respect your child’s choice of books.

- Have fun with reading!

Before You Start

Look at the cover of the book together.
Where is the title? What does it say? What pictures can you see?
What do you think the book will be about?
What genre will this story be? E.g. horror, comedy, fantasy.
Fiction- Ask them to predict something about the story.
Non-fiction- Ask them to think what information they might find out about from the book.
Turn the book over: Say: “The blurb is on the back cover. This tells us what the book is about.”
Next ask your child questions throughout the book- examples are below.

At Smitham, Reading VIPERS are used to support children with their reading comprehension skills. It would be fantastic if you could refer to these question prompts at home as well when you are reading with your child. Click on the approriate PDF for your child's stage at school for more ideas on VIPER questions:

Reading with your child EYFS (3)

Reading with your child KS1 (2)

Reading and Phonics Games Online:

Word dominoes: http://www.toolsforeducators.com/dominoes/text.php

Word and phonic games: http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html

Phonics games: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk

Comprehension skills: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z3882hv

Other Games:

Snap, Memory games, Word of the day, Dictionary Race

Books Online:

Pick a Tale: https://pickatale.co.uk