Reading Intent Statement

At St Mark’s Primary School, we believe that reading is an essential skill for life and we are committed to ensuring that all pupils develop a lifelong love of reading.

We aim to do this by placing reading at the heart of our curriculum. Throughout their time at St Mark’s, children will read a range of high quality books including fiction, non-fiction and poetry from across the curriculum, which are rich in vocabulary. Children are inspired by a range of authors and poets, which will give them a good grounding for independent reading in the future.

As well as appreciating books that are read to them or shared in class, children are taught to read fluently through a systematic approach to phonics, which is built upon during their learning journey to develop a deeper understanding of language. Read Write Inc. is the synthetic phonics programme used across school to support the teaching of reading.

Regardless of children’s’ starting points, our curriculum is developed to allow all children to access age appropriate texts and are not limited by their reading ability.

Reading is prioritised at St Mark’s and children are given a variety of opportunities to read throughout the day including: guided reading, paired reading, independent reading, 1-1 reading and reading for pleasure.

 

St Mark's love to read

Impossible Creatures

This week, all Year 6 children have received a copy of the book Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell. These have been sent by Queen Camilla alongside the National Literacy Trust to celebrate the National Year of Reading, which is designed to inspire every young person to discover the joy of reading. There is a special royal stamp on the cover and a personal message from the Queen inside. We hope the children enjoy reading the book and share their reflections back in class!

Our 'Secret Stories'

 We have lots of 'secret stories' to discover. 

Each book has been carefully wrapped up so that it remains a secret. On each book we have an envelope with four clues in it. As story detectives, we need to use the clues to try and guess what the story could be . . .we are getting very good at making links and predictions! Look at all of the stories we have enjoyed so far. 

  

Y2 Polly Pin workshop

On Friday 9th October, we were treated to a workshop with a local author and illustrator (Melanie and Christine)
They shared their story 'Polly Pin' with us, sang songs about sewing, taught us mindfulness yoga and showed us how a sewing machine works!
The children were so engaged and in awe of the sewing machine.
Maybe they will become designers in the future...!?

      

Celebration of reading

At St Marks, we have been celebrating all things reading!! 

From having over 200 entries in our book cover competition, to some fantastic costumes, workshops and stories on World Book Day and a visit from the Book Bus sharing new stories with us all. Thank you for all your support with these events and we've had so much fun sharing a love for reading in school!