At The Hayes, our goal is for every child to leave us as confident readers who enjoy reading for pleasure. We equip our students with the skills to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary, encouraging them to embrace reading for both enjoyment and purpose.

Reading is at the core of our curriculum and is emphasised across all subjects. By selecting high-quality texts, we foster a love of reading and help students discover new knowledge, revisit previous learning and deepen their understanding of various topics. We focus on enhancing both word reading and comprehension skills, introducing challenging texts that expand vocabulary and expose children to words they may not encounter in everyday conversation.

Our inviting book corners offer a diverse range of genres and represent various cultures and beliefs, ensuring every child finds something that resonates with them.

‘The school’s ambition to inspire pupils to read is evident across the school. There are inviting reading areas around the school which display books, much like a bookstore, to inspire pupils to select from a range of genres. As a result, pupils develop a good vocabulary over time, which is evident in their writing!’

Independent Education Consultant and trained OFSTED Inspector, January 2025

To find out how our reading offer works hand in hand within our full English Curriculum through ‘The Power of Reading’ please click below to be taken to our English page.

Early Reading

At The Hayes, our phonics programme is designed to provide children with exceptional opportunities to develop essential reading and writing skills while fostering confidence, resilience, and a love for literacy. We offer structured lessons that are well-paced and progressive, allowing all students to learn new sounds and apply their phonics knowledge.

Using the 'Little Wandle, Letters and Sounds Revised' programme, we provide daily engaging phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1. In Year 2, children consolidate their phonics knowledge then begin to work on spelling patterns while continuing to improve comprehension and reading fluency as they move through the final year of Key Stage 1. Our phonics teaching follows a very specific sequence of progression that allows our children to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through Key Stage 1. We also model these strategies in shared reading and writing both inside and outside of the phonics lesson. We have a strong focus on the development of language skills for our children because we know that speaking and listening build on crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Children in Reception and Year 1 apply their phonics knowledge in reading practise sessions 3 times a week. In these sessions children work in small groups to read fully decodable books well matched to their phonics knowledge. The children then take the same book home (alongside a reading for pleasure text from the book corner) to ensure success is shared with the family and they can build on fluency through repeated reads of the text.

If you would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow the link below to find the Reception and Year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.

For parents | Letters and Sounds

Reading Provision

From Year 2 and throughout Key Stage 2, children engage in daily read-aloud sessions and guided reading activities that foster their exploration of word morphology, and build both fluency and comprehension skills. Additionally, our weekly comprehension sessions are designed to strengthen the skills needed when reading for meaning and our ‘Focus Five’ spelling practice reinforces vocabulary development. Through these targeted strategies, we aim to nurture confident readers and continue to build on a lifelong love of reading.

From year 2 children take part in daily guided reading sessions. These sessions include:

• An element of prosody (reading with feeling)
• A close look at key vocabulary that children may be unfamiliar with
• Unpicking key reading skills (retrieval, inference, prediction, summarising, vocabulary, making links)
• Modelled answering of questions
• Reading for pleasure using books from the class book corners
• Fact finding using non-fiction texts from the school library
• Teaching fluency by modelled reading, opportunities to re-read, paired reading and group reading.

We prioritise identifying students needing additional support early, enabling us to provide targeted ‘catch up’ activities tailored to each child's needs.

Our goal is to ensure that every child develops the skills necessary for fluent and confident reading and, ultimately, a love and passion for reading.

How we promote a love for reading

Reading for pleasure is an important part of our reading offer. We want to ensure children develop a love of reading and are exposed to a rich, reading diet through a range of interesting and relevant authors.

We promote a love of reading in the following ways:

• Teaching of poetry, which includes performing and learning a range of poems. Every month we enjoy ‘Poems Under the Tree’ at lunchtime when we read poems, share our own poems and write poems too!
• Daily read aloud sessions.
• Book areas within the classroom that have a careful selection of books, including books by the focus author of the half term. Children are able to borrow books from their class book corner to read for pleasure at home (this is in addition to their decodable reading book in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2)
• Spark Book Awards. Click here to find out more - Spark! Book Awards
• Visiting authors and reading events all year round.
• A week of events and activities celebrating World Book Day and National Poetry Day.
• Scholastic Book Fairs.

Quotes from pupils about reading at the Hayes

“I like reading because I can learn about different things, depending on the genre of the book. I love the way a book can transport you into that world or setting. It can help you learn about different cultures or religions.” Isha

“Guided reading is fun because you learn lots of things with our group. When we read as a group we get to talk about the book and learn new words and how to pronounce them.” Eliana

Expectations for home reading

Pupils are expected to read each night. In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, books are changed once a week and this includes both a decodable reading book, well matched to a pupil’s phonics level and a book chosen to share from the class book corner.

As pupils move up through the school, they are encouraged to become more independent and change their books for themselves with support and guidance from teaching staff when needed.

In Key Stage 2 reading alongside an adult should focus on discussion around the book. 

The following PowerPoint presentation gives ideas on supporting fluency and comprehension when reading at home:

Useful links

Book Recommendations

The Hayes Storytime (keep an eye out for more additions throughout the year)!