At Hopton, we promote the love of books. This starts in the foundation stage where weekly themes are centred around a book, to the introduction of class novels in key stage 2.

Every classroom has a dedicated reading corner, where staff and children are invited to share their recommendations for books to enjoy.

All children enjoy a daily story, ranging from a picture book to a chapter from a class novel. Each year group have identified key texts that they want their children to enjoy, as we work towards our children having experienced the joy of a range of quality reads during their time at Hopton.

Reading is recognised as an essential tool for future success, with staff modelling reading behaviours and strategies during whole class, group and individual work as appropriate.

Our youngest children, are taught to identify graphemes, and to match these to phonemes. Blending is introduced as a key skill to starting our children off on their exciting reading adventure.

Children in F2 and year 1, read three times a week in reading groups, working on the key skills of decoding, prosody and comprehension.

As children ‘break the phonetic code’ and develop fluency in their reading, more emphasis is placed on comprehension skills. This starts in year 2, as children move onto reading books that are no longer purely decodable through to year 3, where the children move on to accelerated reading.

Whilst children are learning to read, we encourage a ‘love of reading’ through providing high quality picture books for children to take home to share with an adult. Older children, are encouraged to read from a range of levelled books available to them from our ‘Accelerated Reading’ library.

The love of reading is also encouraged through the active participation of inviting parents/carers into school for accelerated reading sessions. These take place weekly throughout key stage 2.

Our Reading Scheme

We are very excited to have recently revamped our reading scheme. Our core reading scheme is Collins Big Cat, starting with ‘Little Wandle’ decodable books which progress to Big Cat non decodable books after Phase 5 phonics. Accelerated reading moves the children onto real books, which are organised in progressive levels. This is a research proven reading practice that is child driven and teacher guided. Engaging quizzes and activities aid the children in developing their reading skills with authentic practice. This fosters a love of reading using ‘real’ books whilst developing their reading ability.

Follow the links below for more information.