At Northfield, we love reading! 

Everyone at Northfield understands the importance of reading - it underpins the whole curriculum and allows you to enjoy life to the full and learn so many new things! We believe that reading should be enjoyed by all and is a priority at our school.

We not only have a wonderful extensive library, each class has a cosy book corner and teachers always identify which books they are reading and take opportunities to discuss reading recommendations!

We are always reading - even at home!

We actively encourage the children to read at home with parents, carers, grandparents and love it when they write in their reading record. Year 3-5 have a traditional reading record while year 6 have their own bespoke reading planner. 

Our children enjoy a wide range of colour book banded books carefully matched to their ability and have the opportunity to choose from our extensive library too. Every child is encouraged to read at home and at school as much as possible and they love to work towards our Reading Challenge! After recording their reading, each child has the opportunity to move from Bronze level all the way up to Rose level. This is celebrated weekly in our special Gold Assembly. By completing the Reading Challenge, you are also entered into a weekly prize draw to win a brand-new book! 

Some children who are part of a phonics group will also read a carefully matched phonics book to an adult at home too. This will consolidate their knowledge and support them to make rapid progress towards their individual targets. 

How we teach your child to read 

At Northfield we teach your child to be a fluent reader by incorporating plenty of opportunities to read aloud to an adult or their peer. 

We use techniques such as guided reading, whole class reading, 1:1 reading or paired reading to support your child to read.  Each class completes a book study each term and they regularly hear their exciting, thought-provoking and challenging class reader book. Teachers actively seek opportunities across the curriculum to develop the children's reading skills and they study as wide a range of texts as possible.

In Y3 and Y4, all children have a login to Lexia. Lexia is a proven program to develop their reading and spelling skills. It quickly identifies gaps in their phonics knowledge and stretches their reading skills. 

At Northfield, we teach children to not only be able to read a text fluently, but also be able to understand what they have read confidently. We do this through inference techniques. In the following attachment, you can see the teaching strategies we follow to help children with their inference skills. Your child will be familiar with these, and they will support your child when they are reading at home. 

At Northfield we love reading!