Reading Intent
The intent of the reading curriculum at St. Aidan’s Church of England Primary School is to develop confident, fluent and enthusiastic readers who can understand, interpret and enjoy a wide range of texts.
It aims to build strong foundational skills in phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension, ensuring that all children—regardless of background or ability—have the tools they need to access the wider curriculum.
Through exposure to diverse genres and authors, the curriculum fosters a love of reading, encourages critical thinking and supports language development, laying the groundwork for lifelong learning and success.
Reading Aims
The aim of the reading curriculum at St. Aidan’s is to develop pupils’ fluency, comprehension and enjoyment of reading from an early age.
It is designed to ensure that all children learn to decode words effectively, build a strong vocabulary and understand a wide range of texts across different genres.
The curriculum fosters a love of reading by exposing pupils to high-quality literature and encouraging them to read for pleasure as well as for learning.
It also aims to equip students with the skills to think critically about texts, make inferences and engage in meaningful discussions. Ultimately, the reading curriculum lays the foundation for lifelong learning and academic success across all subjects.
Reading Implementation
At St. Aidan’s, the implementation of our reading curriculum involves a structured, age-appropriate approach designed to build foundational literacy skills and foster a love of reading.
Throughout the school, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is used for the teaching of reading. In the early years, we follow the Little Wandle Foundations programme which focuses on the phonological skills required as a prerequisite for learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences and blending for reading as well as developing vocabulary and a love of reading. The core programme is then used in Reception and Year 1, helping children to develop essential decoding and segmenting skills for reading and spelling. Teachers use a mix of whole-class instruction, reading practice groups and daily keep up small group and 1:1 sessions to cater to varied learning needs. Once children are able to read age-appropriate texts using their phonics knowledge without overt sounding out, Little Wandle Fluency is used throughout the school to focus on children’s fluency and reading stamina, prosody and comprehension. Teachers use a mix of whole-class instruction, reading practice groups and the Rapid Catch-up KS2 phonics programme to cater to varied learning needs.
The curriculum is aligned with national standards, ensuring progression in vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency across levels.
Regular assessments guide instruction and identify children needing additional support, while a diverse selection of texts promotes engagement, spirituality and inclusivity. Collaboration among teachers, parents and regular support from our Little Wandle consultant ensures consistent delivery and reinforcement of reading skills throughout the school.
Reading Impact
The reading curriculum at St. Aidan’s plays a critical role in shaping children’s foundational literacy skills, which are essential for their academic success and lifelong learning.
By introducing age-appropriate texts, phonics instruction, vocabulary development, and comprehension strategies, the curriculum helps children build fluency, critical thinking and a love for reading. It also supports cognitive and language development, enabling children to access knowledge across all subjects.
Our well-structured reading curriculum fosters equity by providing all pupils, regardless of background, with the tools they need to succeed, laying the groundwork for confident, capable readers who are prepared for the demands of higher education and beyond.
Since September 2021, we have followed the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme to teach phonics in Early Years and Key Stage One. Children take part in discrete daily whole class phonics lessons in which children are taught new phonemes in a particular order using the four-part lesson structure: revisit/review, teach, practise and apply. In these phonics sessions, children are expected to participate fully, providing them with as many opportunities as possible to practise blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. In order for children to apply their phonic knowledge and develop their automaticity and reading fluency, they read in small groups, with an adult, three times a week. Books are chosen carefully to ensure they match the child’s ability in phonics. Over the course of the week, the groups read the same book three times, each time focussing on a different aspect of reading: decoding, prosody and comprehension. This is the same book they take home to enjoy reading to their parents as well.
In Key Stage Two, any children who are not at age related expectations for reading or have not passed the phonic screening check take part in the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Rapid Catch Up Programme. This is regularly assessed to allow children to make rapid progress with their phonics learning. Children accessing this programme in Key Stage Two will also use Little Wandle decodable books matched to their correct phonic phase. Once the children have graduated from the Rapid Catch-up Programme, they will then enter the Little Wandle Fluency programme to help develop their fluency for reading.
Please access the Little Wandle website (link below) to find more information. The ‘For parents’ section provides videos of how to pronounce sounds and how we teach the reading of words.
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds
A Love of Reading
Our ultimate aim is to create a community where everyone loves to read and we have created inviting reading areas in the classrooms, in and around school and outside in our outdoor learning areas. Throughout school, children have the opportunity to access a selection of high quality children’s fiction, non-fiction and poetry that have been carefully selected to celebrate diversity and reflect the society in which we live. Children participate in weekly visits to our school library and teachers model fluent reading daily during our shared reading time. Once a week, they take part in Book Club in their classrooms where they are able to enjoy talking about books and make recommendations to one another. In addition to celebrating World Book Day and National Poetry Day, throughout the year, they enjoy workshops delivered by authors and poets, after-school book clubs and visits to our local library to enrich their learning and nurture their love of reading. Across school, children have access to fiction and non-fiction which link to our curriculum topics and themes. They are encouraged to read widely to enhance their understanding of subjects, and teachers use high-quality texts when teaching foundation subjects to allow children to practise their reading fluency and comprehension skills throughout the curriculum.
Please download the documents below to find out more information about how we teach and support children’s reading in school.
Reading Spine
Please click here to download the St. Aidan’s Reading Spine