“Teach Reading, Change Lives.” 

– Little Wandle

At Ghost Hill the intent of our reading curriculum is to ensure strong teaching of early reading to create a love of reading and ensure that children are able to transition from learning to read to reading to learn. We seek to develop pupils as independent readers by the end of their time at Ghost Hill to best prepare them for their next stage of education at Junior School. Through the use of our systematic synthetic phonics program – Little Wandle – we ensure children follow a rigorous and challenging phonics scheme to support Early Reading. We complete reading practice sessions three times per week to apply our phonetical knowledge to our reading to build fluency as soon as possible.

At Ghost Hill we understand that fluency is the bridge to comprehension. Therefore, children receive books that are well match to their phonetical learning throughout our school. This ensures that home reading books can be read with accuracy and encourages children to re-read texts to further develop fluency. This then supports them with their comprehension skills.  Opportunities are provided to read across the curriculum with fluency, accuracy, understanding and enjoyment – including through being read to frequently by adults. A love of reading is developed through providing opportunities to hear adults read to them, both in school and at home. This is supported by our excellent school library.

Through comprehension we aim to support children in reflecting upon and talking about the texts they encounter so that pupils come to understand how writers write and the special relationship which exists between author and reader. We aim to support critical and imaginative engagement with texts, helping them to make sense of the world and their place within it.