In reception we continue the children's learning journey by sharing and enjoying books with each other every day; individually, in small groups and as a whole class.

The frequency of reading to children at a young age has a significant, positive effect on their reading skills and their cognitive skills later in life. Research shows that there is a difference in reading performance equivalent to just over a year's schooling between young people who never read for enjoyment and those who read for up to thirty minutes per day.  [OECD (2002) Reading for Change: Performance and engagement across countries p.16-17]

In the Early Years we are in a unique position of fostering this love of reading and supporting children as they learn to read to continue this lifelong relationship with books and reading.

Daily phonics lessons support the children to begin to sound out letters and blend them together to read simple words.  Once we are sure they are confident with this process, we will begin to send books home so your child can read with you.  We use a reading record to track children's progress and we would ask you to update this record every time you read with your child.   We will read all comments and answer any concerns or questions you may have either in person or via the reading record.  We expect the children to read their book at least twice, ideally once at home and at school, before it is changed.  Your comments are so helpful as it enables us to support the children's learning at a personal level.

Children are involved in selecting their own reading books because we believe in the importance of building and maintaining a love of books.  As adults, we would not select a book to read that did not interest us and children should be given the same courtesy.  We use a variety of reading books to provide a wide choice of fiction and non-fiction and children have the opportunity to visit the library weekly to select a book to take home.

In reception, the only homework we send home is reading and some phonics and letter formation work once we have started teaching phonics.  The phonics work is a simple consolidation of the sounds learnt during the week and can be incorporated into your daily activities.  For example, the first sound we teach is 's' so we would ask you to practise saying the sound with your child, writing the letter and then throughout the day pointing out objects that have the 's' sound in them.  There will also be 'tricky' words (words that have to be learnt by sight because they cannot be sounded out) to be learnt to support reading fluency.