Our names are Laura Swain and Lauren King. We are the subject leads for Phonics and Reading in school.

My name is Lauren King, I am a year 3/4 teacher in Herons. I am passionate about reading in school and believe all children should be able to enjoy books and immerse themselves in worlds beyond their own imaginations. 

My name is Laura Swain, I am a year 2 teacher in Hedgehogs class. I have loved reading since I was at school and still continue to enjoy reading in my free time. I am really eager to get as many children as possible excited about books and reading for enjoyment.

Why is reading important?

At Round Hill Primary School, we want to foster a lifelong love of reading. We believe reading ignites creativity, sparks curiosity and stimulates imagination. It provides children with an opportunity to explore new ideas, visit new places, meet new characters and develop a better understanding of other cultures, Through building up vocabulary, it gives them the word power they need to become successful speakers and writers as well as confident readers. Reading is a key life skill and we strive to embed a culture of reading into the core of what we do.

Book Bands

As a school, we have adapted our book banding from previous years to suit our children. We now use the following order of book bands with regular benchmarking/ discussion after reading with children to ensure that they are appropriately challenged. 

The grid below shows the typical progression through the book bands, for a child working at Age-Related Expectations. This is just a guide, we all know children do not make progress at the same rate.  If you have any questions or concerns, please speak to your child's class teacher.  

Children are also encouraged to choose another book/books based on their own interests to promote reading for pleasure. We also work closely with the Beeston Library to ensure children know about the resources available to them there. 

Bug Club Reading Scheme

Round Hill Primary School have a very exciting reading scheme called Bug Club. It is available for all children in Reception - Year 6. Bug Club is a finely-levelled reading scheme, which ensures that all children can find books at exactly the right level for them. Bug Club books have a fantastic range of titles, which are graded into colour-coded book band levels. Within each level, there is a carefully planned progression of books. This fine progression gives children plenty of opportunity to develop their reading skills and master each fine step while moving through the reading programme.

How can you help at home?

Parents play a crucial role in supporting their child to become confident, fluent readers who enjoy reading. Until they are fluent readers, younger children will benefit from reading aloud to you as often as possible. We advise listening to your child read on a daily basis for 10-15 minutes. By the time they are in Key Stage 2, many children prefer to read silently to themselves. It’s important to create quiet opportunities for them to do so, but parents should also try to find the opportunity to talk to their child about the book they are reading.

When sharing a book with your child, try to take opportunities to talk about the book – before, during and after reading.

Before reading: look at the book cover and talk about your child’s expectations. Is the book likely to be fiction or non-fiction? Have you read other books together about these characters or by this author? What does your child think the book is going to be about?

While reading: support your child when unknown words need tackling: you can use the pictures for support, sound them out, split them into syllables, or identify suffixes and prefixes. Remind your child to listen to the words while reading them, to make sure that they make sense. Have a ‘meaning check’ every now and again to ensure that your child understands the text.

After reading: talk about the book. What was it about? Did it match your child’s expectations? Ask questions beginning with the words ‘how’ and ‘why’ to check that your child has been able to read between the lines.

We strongly encourage EYFS and KS1 parents to record in your child’s planner with evidence of reading and positive comments to promote reading.  Ideally, where they are able to, KS2 children could take ownership of their own reading and record their own comments.  Parents can monitor this with supportive comments to encourage your child to do their best.

What can you do to help reading comprehension?

Understanding the book is vital and as part of learning to read, it is important that your child develops their comprehension skills. As you read together, talk about what is happening in the book, what might happen next, and anything that has puzzled them. Encourage your child to re-tell the main parts of the story, using the pictures as a prompt if they need it. When your child finishes a book, ask them whether they liked it or not and encourage them to explain why. After discussing the book, it would be a good time to do the activities linked to the Bug Club book.

See the VIPERS website page for further information on how reading is taught in school.