Reading
At St Mary and St Giles, we intend for children to become enthusiastic and motivated readers. We aim to develop children’s confidence in reading. They will experience a wide variety of genres and text types. Children will develop the skills to decode words in order to be able to read fluently with understanding of what they have read. We will promote a love of literature and an enjoyment of reading for pleasure.
Our whole curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children, regardless of background, ability, additional needs, to become responsible citizens and flourish.
Our consistent approach to reading
At St Mary and St Giles, we believe it is fundamental that all children are confident, successful, responsible individuals who are effective contributors to help equip them fully for their educational journey and ultimately life.
It is essential that across our curriculum and within all our English lessons, we are developing our pupils’ knowledge and skills within spoken language, reading, writing, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.
We are ambitious in striving for the skills and knowledge gained in Reading lessons to be embedded across all areas of the curriculum.
Within our school, we have an English team with representative leads for reading, phonics and writing. We have a progressive and sequential curriculum is in place across all areas of the English curriculum with our phonics approach following Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) and a bespoke reading approach that focuses on equipping children with essential knowledge and skills.
Useful Documents
Essential Letters and Sounds
At SMSG, we follow Essential Letters and Sounds which we use as a consistent approach to teach phonics across the school. We have fidelity to this single approach across the school. ELS was validated by the Department for Education in June 2021.
What is Essential Letters and Sounds?
Essential Letters and Sounds 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. Essential Letters and Sounds is an SSP where only the essential elements are included.
The name reflects the key principles of the programme; simplicity and consistency.
What does the programme offer our school
- is delivered to the whole class
- combines continuous and reactive assessment
- provides robust intervention
- is rigorous and engaging
- supports teachers to ensure the lowest attaining children keep up rather than catch up
- aligns with books from Oxford University Press
- provides immediate, in the lesson intervention
- provides whole school training, accessible at times that suit your school timetable
- supports Reading and Phonics Leads
- training subscription includes an assessment tracker and analysis dashboard