At Prudhoe Castle First School we will give your child every opportunity to become a lifelong lover of books.
Each week your child will receive 3 new reading books to take home and enjoy. One of their books is ‘a book to read’ – this is a book for children to have a go at by themselves with your support. This starts off in Reception as a picture book to talk about but will eventually become what is known as a ‘decodable reader’. The book will match the phonics stage your child is working at and they should be able to sound out and read all of the words fairly independently. As your child progresses through the school, their ‘book to read’ will reflect their phonics ability and then later on, their reading stage. Books are banded by the level of difficulty, which enables us to select books from different reading schemes knowing that they are the right level for our pupils. Each book band has its own colour. We have a range of fiction and non-fiction books to engage the pupils’ interests.
Their second book is ‘a book to share’ – this is a book that will be more challenging and will contain words that may be too advanced for your child to read independently. This is a book that you can read for them or alongside them. There will definitely be words they recognise and plenty of talking opportunities but they will also need your help with the trickier words they will come across and maybe some support with comprehension.
Finally, the third book will be a library book which we hope you will enjoy together. For the first half term, teachers may choose books for the children but after half term, the children will be able to choose their own books from a range we keep in the classroom.
Children are to read their books several times over the week, and bring them back to school on a Friday when we change their books. It is important that they re-read the same book over and over to really become familiar with recognising words, developing reading pace and understanding new vocabulary they will come across.
Please see the attached document for further explanation of the reading bands.
Supporting Progression of Successful Text Reading at Prudhoe Castle First School
