Literacy: Reading

At Heathmere Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they should read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

The teaching of reading is embedded throughout our curriculum. Our Literacy lessons are based on our ‘Core Texts’ which change each term and are carefully mapped out to expose our children to a range of reading genres.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Literacy Lead who drives the reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team. Our current Literacy Lead is also a Literacy Specialist for the Wandle English Hub.

If you would like to know more about our approach to Early Reading (Phonics), click here. 

If you would like to see the progression of phonics in Reception and Year 1, click here. 

If you would like to know more about our approach to Reading in Year 2 – Year 6, click here. 

Every child at Heathmere will have:

• their own copy of the book they are reading in Literacy lessons, to keep forever (every half term in Nursery, Reception and Year 1 and every full term in Year 2 – Year 6)
• author/illustrator visits and workshops (at least one per year)
• exposure to new authors and genres
• advice on how to choose a book that they will enjoy reading
• time every week to choose a reading book and read for pleasure
• time each day where an adult will read aloud to the class
• access to both school libraries, with thousands of books to choose from, at least once a week
• access to free book giveaways, supported by location charities and donations
• an opportunity to read to Percy, the school therapy dog that visits weekly
• visits to Roehampton library every half term
• storytelling sessions with a librarian, held in Roehampton library

Reading at home

Reading is a very important part of a child’s education at Heathmere. We encourage children to read at home every day to develop the reading skills they learn in school – every Friday, the class that has read the most at home that week are crowned our ‘Reading Race’ champions and receive a class certificate and trophy. Parents can help to support their child’s reading by reading with the regularly at home.

EYFS – 50 books to read at home 

Year 1 – 50 books to read at home

Year 2 – 50 books to read at home

Year 3 – 50 books to read at home

Year 4 – 50 books to read at home

Year 5 – 50 books to read at home

Year 6 – 50 books to read at home

Reading volunteers

We work in partnership with Beanstalk (a national reading charity who provide volunteer readers to read 1:1 with children in school) and Learn 2 Love 2 Read (a local Wandsworth charity who engage with children and parents to support reading at home). This provides our children with additional daily reading time with an adult to further develop their love of reading.