Reception to Year 3 – Reading Information 2025
Dear parents/ carers,
Firstly, thank you for your continued support in helping our children develop into confident, independent readers. Ensuring every child has the necessary skills they need to read is an essential component of literacy education. It enables children to not only learn across the curriculum but also to access numerous aspects of daily life, influencing the opportunities that they have available to them in the future.
Click here to read some key research on the importance of reading fluency for wider life.
Reading Books
Children bring home two different books that are changed on a weekly basis. These two books serve different purposes and the green and red stickers on the front indicate the purpose of each book.
Green Sticker
HOME FLUENCY
Decodable phonics
I must read this book to an adult
These must always be read first, to an adult. These books are to allow children to read independently, confidently and accurately as they build fluency, confidence and a love for reading. These are books that contain sounds and words that children have been taught in class and that they have been assessed as knowing when working independently.
They may be slightly below the level that they’re working on in class and below their complete phonic understanding but, as said above, they are to build fluency, confidence and a love of reading. Children may have the same book on occasions, as they may not be ready to move up once they’ve read all the books in the band, but this is OK as children gain confidence and a deeper understanding of books by some re-reading of familiar texts.
If a child demonstrates strong knowledge of letter sounds, high-frequency words, and the ability to segment and blend accurately but still primarily reads by orally segmenting most sentences, it is appropriate to keep them on their current band for a little longer. This approach allows children to develop fluency and automaticity in recognising more words by sight, which is crucial for building reading confidence and comprehension.
Moving up a book band too soon might place unnecessary cognitive load on a child, as they would have to focus heavily on decoding rather than understanding the text. Staying on the current level gives them time to consolidate their skills and transition more naturally to fluent reading before progressing to more challenging texts.
Red Sticker
HOME ENRICHMENT
I must share this book with an adult
These must always be read with an adult to enrich their reading experience and provide challenge at home. You may want to read a page each, a word each, or just work through the book together while offering support and encouragement. These will include many sounds and words that children know but may also include unfamiliar sounds, sounds that have just been taught in class, or be from the next band up from which children are working on in class. They’re not expected to be able to read these fluently but they’re there to widen their vocabulary knowledge, to challenge and to enrich the reading experience at home.
If you have any questions regarding early reading or phonics, please contact a member of staff.
Thank you for your continued support.
Mr Denton
