At Hillside, we want all children to leave primary school as curious, fluent and confident readers who can think critically about a wide range of texts and, most importantly, develop a lifelong passion for reading.

Reading is taught as a discrete skill, separate from writing, to ensure that children develop strong comprehension, fluency and decoding skills at every stage of their learning journey. In the Early Years and Year 1, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme, which provides a structured approach to developing early reading skills through systematic phonics teaching and carefully matched reading books.

In Year 2, children continue to develop their reading fluency and comprehension through small-group guided reading sessions. These sessions allow teachers to closely support pupils as they read appropriately levelled texts and develop their understanding of vocabulary, inference, prediction and retrieval skills.

From Year 3 to Year 6, reading is taught through whole-class reading sessions. High-quality texts are used to develop children’s comprehension skills, encourage discussion and deepen understanding of authorial intent, language choices and themes. Teachers model reading strategies and support pupils to become independent, reflective readers who can engage confidently with increasingly complex texts.

Across the school, we aim to foster a strong culture of reading. Our library plays a key part in that, having recently been updated. Children are encouraged to read widely and often, both at school and at home, and to explore a range of genres and authors. Until children are 'free readers', they will bring home a levelled reading book as well as a book of their choice from the library. Our goal is to ensure that every child develops not only the skills to read well, but also the enthusiasm and curiosity to read for pleasure.