"I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding."

Phillipians 1:9

Reading

We are passionate about the importance of reading at St. Stephen's C.E Church of England Primary School.  

Over the seven years that your child is in our care we aim for them to develop a love of reading and books so that they move from learning to read to reading to learn – and reading purely for enjoyment too!  We have a small library and from starting school the children are encouraged to take books home and share these with their family.

We read with children in a variety of ways:

• Children are heard read on a 1:1 basis where appropriate.
• Guided reading takes places daily in each class.
• In Key Stage 1 stories are shared with the children at the end of each day.
• Key Stage 2 children read a class novel at the end of each day. This may link to their topic work.

Each child will have a home reading book. Our reading scheme follows the phonic phases of Red Rose Letters and Sounds. This means that the books should closely match the children's phonic ability (in Key Stage 2 books match reading ability). The books are grouped according to the phonics sounds in them and each group of books has a different colour.

Phonics in the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1

The school’s phonics programme is Red Rose Letters and Sounds. These resources provide a structured scheme to support teachers and teaching assistants in delivering high quality synthetic phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage One and early Key Stage Two.