Our vision for reading at Eyrescroft is that children enjoy reading and realise their potential.

We achieve this through:

• Providing quality texts, valuing all reading sources
• Using reading to support learning across the curriculum
• Having high expectation of all groups of learners
• Fostering reading at home and encouraging community and wider links
• Having a balance of learning skills and reading for pleasure

By enabling children to be successful in their reading it widens their horizon and brings out the best in each and every learner.

As a school we are always looking at ways to continue to improve progress and attainment. Pupils who are competent readers and writers tend to make better progress in all areas of the curriculum.  This term we are focussing on Reading. Research shows the following key factors improve progress and attainment in reading;

• Access to a range of good quality reading materials
• Regular opportunities to read
• Parental support

In order to improve reading at Highlees we;

• Focus on the teaching of synthetic phonics within the Early Years and Key Stage 1.
• Utilise the Power of Reading Project to build work around good quality texts to foster a love of reading.
• Broaden pupils awareness of different authors and genres.
• Timetable regular opportunities for our pupils to read in school. (ERIC - Everyone Reading In Class)
• Allocate dedicated time for Guided Reading across all year groups.
• Deliver the Better Reading Partnership intervention in Key Stage 1 and 2.
• Have a dedicated group of Reading Buddies in targeted classes.
• Introduced a programme of text renewal to ensure pupils have access to high quality reading materials.
• Planning a programme of improvement to develop reading areas within each phase.

We need parental support to further improve the progress our children are making in Reading. Over the next few months we will be launching a series of events to promote reading at home. We hope you will support this important initiative to our school and your children.

There are number of ways you can support your child with their reading;

• Regularly share a book with your child.
• Encourage your child to read a range of materials in addition to books e.g. comics, cereal boxes, signs, newspapers etc.
• Take advantage of the local library.
• Attend school workshops about reading.