At St. Thomas More, we want our children to develop a love of reading and of books as it is our belief that every child should be able to read for pleasure and to a high standard. We believe it is important to immerse our children in the wonders of quality texts, to instil a love for reading, a passion for discovery and a confidence to explore their imagination through their own reading and writing. We believe every child should be given the tools to develop into an enthusiastic reader both at home and at school. We know that reading improves language and vocabulary, inspires imagination and gives everyone the opportunity to develop and foster new interests. Our children are given the opportunity to read across the curriculum and to read every day.
For Phonics, we follow Essential Letters and Sounds. This is a Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme, validated by the Department for Education. By distilling Letters and Sounds to its purest form, – its essence – we ensure every phonics lesson is taught to the highest standard.
Our approach to writing uses 'The Write Stuff'. This is based on two guiding principles; teaching sequences that slide between experience days and sentence stacking lessons. With modelling at the heart of them, the sentence stacking lessons are broken into bite-sized chunks and taught under the structural framework of The Writing Rainbow. Teachers prepare children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar or techniques of writing.
Please click here to find out more about our reading.
Please click here to see a leaflet about how to support the younger readers – Reading Booklet
For support with phonics, please use the following links or see the document below: