Reading

At Hillsgrove, we believe all pupils, whatever their background, have a right to access the best that has been said and thought. This includes a variety of writers, from all parts of the world, and thinkers from all the ages. The curriculum ensures that pupils are knowledgeable enough about the world around them to transform it in the future.

As part of this, we ensure that children are given access to a range of texts which challenge them, including those with Archaic Language, that time shift and that have more than one narrator. Whilst these are very challenging we Pre learn the vocabulary, read in small chunks and then close read and over read the text to support pupil understanding and to build vocabulary.

Parents are encouraged to support their children in pre-reading these texts prior to them being started in class and during coverage. To support parents with this the lists below are given out to Year Groups at the start of the year.

Reading is essential to making progress across the curriculum and helps reduce stress!

  • 20 books+ of your own at home can give you 3 more years of schooling!
  • 20 minutes or reading a day = 1,800,000 words a year
  • Children who read 1,000,000 words a year are in the top 2% of reading achievement
  • Children learn 4,000 to 12,000 words a year through reading
  • Every single book counts—just one book a day means 1,825 books by their 5th birthday!

What do we do at Hillsgrove to help with Reading?

We have had 2 new libraries built and decorated - each class gets a session in their library each week to explore their interests.

  • Reading records - we encourage at least 10 minutes of reading a day.
  • We cover phonics from day 1 in Reception. We follow and use the Read Write Inc scheme.
  • We run termly phonics workshops to help parents teach phonics and support children's learning.
  • We run termly reading afternoons where parents and carers can come into school and read with their children!
  • Reading buddies help us to teach reading to less confident pupils in Key Stage 1 - a job they take very seriously in order to build confidence and enjoyment in reading.
  • AIR (Accountable Independent Reading): A Hillsgrove approach to developing vocabulary where we tackle challenging texts as a class and drill down on learning new vocabulary and how to use it
  • We spent £6,500 on books for our new libraries this year!
  • We take part in 200 million minutes reading challenge each year.
  • Charlton Athletic FC worked with SEND pupils to develop a love of reading.
  • Able readers attend author workshops each year in Bexley.
  • We celebrate World Book Day each year!

A HUGE thank-you to all of the parents who bought books at Travelling Books! This helps raise an amazing amount of funds that we put directly back in to resources for English but more importantly, helps build up your child's love for reading - THANK YOU!