Promoting Reading

At Barrow Primary School reading is at the heart of everything we do. Our aim is to ensure that every child not only develops the skills of reading, but also a love of reading that will last them a lifetime.

Reading at the Heart of Our Curriculum

Our Reading curriculum is deliberately designed to be ambitious and aspirational, ensuring that every child leaves our school as a competent, confident reader. Drawing on the latest research around explicit vocabulary instruction, reading fluency and key comprehension strategies, this curriculum is a synthesis of what we know works in helping children make outstanding progress in reading and a distillation into consistent, well-structured practice.

Pupils will receive a daily diet of excellent reading teaching and this will be supplemented by regular opportunities to engage with shared reading experiences, promoting the joy of reading with the whole school community. The clear structure and principles ensure that teaching is progressive, challenging and engaging and the rich, diverse literature spine acts as both a mirror so that every child can see themselves in the core texts and as a mirror to engage pupils with experiences beyond their own field of reference.

Recommended Reading Lists

Here are some ideas for high quality reading books for children in different year groups throughout school. These are only intended as a guide.  If your child is not yet able to read at the level for their year group, it is perfectly fine for them to read books from lists for children in younger years. If you would like further information about the types of books that we recommend please speak to your child’s class teacher for advice.

Websites for books

Websites for phonics

Curriculum Resources

As the National Curriculum is changing rapidly, you may wish to download the National Curriculum Parents Guide from Rising Stars. This explains the changes to the National Curriculum and the new assessment and contains a clear outline of the new content, by year group, with some background information about how the curriculum and assessment work.