At Barnett Wood, we believe that reading is a vital skill that will support children’s learning across the whole curriculum. As a school, we ensure that our children are taught to read with fluency, accuracy and understanding through a variety of discreet and cross-curricular learning opportunities. We want our children to become enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers but most of all, we want our children to enjoy reading and develop a lifelong love of books.

Our ‘Reading Spine’ is one element of the approach we take to foster a love for reading in our children. The spine is a core of books that create a living library inside our children’s minds. It is a store of fantastic, high-quality reads that help our children engage at a deeper level and enter the world of books. We have adopted Pie Corbett’s ‘Reading Spine’ for every year group giving children access to brilliant texts year on year.

Reading for pleasure is so important for children’s vocabulary development, and a great opportunity to escape into the world of the imagination too.

Our aim is to:

• place reading and books at the centre of the curriculum
• recognise that being able to read well is a key life skill for children, whatever their background and believe that every child can learn to read with the right teaching and support
• acknowledge that not all children will have had the opportunity to develop a love of reading at home, so this has to be taught and encouraged at school – just like any other area of the curriculum
• build time for all children to read independently, read aloud and be read to during the school day
• develop a coherent whole-school strategy for promoting reading for pleasure
• spend money and time to support reading, including buying books and developing the school environment to support reading
• believe that every teacher should be an advocate for reading and devote time to training staff so they are equipped to support children’s enjoyment of reading

We have many initiatives that will be taking place in school over this academic year to encourage reading for pleasure:

• Daily reading aloud in class from a range of texts
• Reading assemblies
• Inspiring reading corners in classrooms
• World Book Day/Book Week
• Revamped library and new books
• Latest books releases and recommended reads display