At Westwood we value the importance of reading and hope to inspire and motivate our children to develop a passion for reading. 

We read through many different ways: 

• One to one reading on a daily basis 
• Group reading sessions 
• Reading buddies for shared reading 
• Daily story sessions 
• Reading through other subjects 
• Outdoor reading 
• Library Lodge reading 
• Enchanted Forest group reading sessions 
• Online Reading games and activities 
• Exploration of different texts

At Westwood we follow the Book Band Scheme. Each child is assessed using a Running Record and given a colour band of books to read. The colours become progressively more challenging. The order of the Book Band colours are as follows:

Pink  Red  Yellow   Blue  Green  Orange  Turquoise  Purple  Gold   White  Lime

Reading at home is highly beneficial to your child's development. We reward reading at home and encourage all children to share a book with someone wherever possible. When reading with children it is always useful to ask your child questions to challenge their thinking and their understanding of the text. You could ask:

What has happened in the book so far?

What do you think will happen next?

Who is your favourite/least favourite character and why? 

Is the book Fiction (story) or Non Fiction (Factual)? 

Who is the Author or Illustrator? 

What could be a solution to the problem i the book? 

Can you recall any facts? 

Have you learnt anything new from the book? 

Would you recommend this book to anyone? Why? 

Communication Book

Every child at Westwood is provided with a communication book. This book is to be used to communicate messages from school to home and home to school. This is also to be used as a record of when your child reads at home and at school. 

The document below provides guidance on how parents/carers can support reading at home, relating to the book band levels.

Your child's book band level can be found in their school communication book.

Our focus on reading development is of high importance to us and this is clear to see with our results.

In 2017 100% of pupils achieved national expectations or above in reading.

In 2018 92.9% of pupils achieved national expectations or above in reading.

In 2019 100% of pupils achieved national expectations or above in reading. 

The National Curriculum states pupils in Year one should be taught to:

• apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words
• respond speedily with the correct sound to graphemes (letters or groups of letters) for all 40+ phonemes, including, where applicable, alternative sounds for graphemes
• read accurately by blending sounds in unfamiliar words containing GPCs that have been taught
• read common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
• read words containing taught GPCs and –s, –es, –ing, –ed, –er and –est endings
• read other words of more than one syllable that contain taught GPCs
• read words with contractions [for example, I’m, I’ll, we’ll], and understand that the apostrophe represents the omitted letter(s)
• read books aloud, accurately, that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and that do not require them to use other strategies to work out words
• reread these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading

The National Curriculum states that children in Year Two should be taught to:

• continue to apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words until automatic decoding has become embedded and reading is fluent
• read accurately by blending the sounds in words that contain the graphemes taught so far, especially recognising alternative sounds for graphemes
• read accurately words of two or more syllables that contain the same graphemes as above
• read words containing common suffixes
• read further common exception words, noting unusual correspondences between spelling and sound and where these occur in the word
• read most words quickly and accurately, without overt sounding and blending, when they have been frequently encountered
• read aloud books closely matched to their improving phonic knowledge, sounding out unfamiliar words accurately, automatically and without undue hesitation
• reread these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading