At Longparish C.E. Primary School we value reading as a key life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. Children should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. We want pupils to develop a love of reading, a good knowledge of a range of authors, and be able to understand more about the world in which they live through the knowledge they gain from texts. Our class read aloud books, shared reading books and books to support writing all are carefully chosen to link with the curriculum, or link with our golden threads around ‘migration and the movement of mankind’ and ‘climate and sustainability’, or to just both challenge and entertain.

We prioritise the importance of early reading by delivering a robust phonics programme (Essential Letters and Sounds) in the Early Years and Key Stage 1, this is paired with the Oxford Reading Tree reading scheme which supports the use of letters and sounds. Reading opportunities are further enhanced by our use of Bug Club. Our intent is for children to develop and apply phonetic knowledge through decoding, segmenting and blending while encouraging curiosity through different genres to build fluent and ambitious readers. 

Through thorough tracking, we ensure that no child is left behind; those few pupils who find learning to read a challenge are supported through rigorous interventions to cater for their needs.

We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills, and so we encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school through good quality texts.

We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Our writing curriculum is also enhanced through the use of quality texts. In this way, our children are taught to write in a variety of styles and for a variety of purposes that are both meaningful to them and exciting.  Our writing lessons not only promote a love for reading and writing but also develop the children’s imagination and creativity alongside their speaking and listening skills.  We use high-quality models and class discussion to explore and promote the correct use of spelling, punctuation and grammar so the children have a clear idea about how these elements can impact on their writing choices. We have the highest expectations of all our children and often use writing as a way for the children to publish their work in a range of innovative and well-presented ways that they are proud of and can share with others.