Our Reading Books!
Book Banding
At our school, the children are provided with a rich and varied range of texts to read at home and at school to practice and apply their reading knowledge and skills. They are encouraged to read a wide range of texts – fiction, poetry and non-fiction texts – to support and consolidate their understanding of word reading and their comprehension skills.
Our reading scheme is fully book banded in line with age-related expectations (EYFS, KS1 and KS2) with explicit links to reading ages and the phonic phases (please see our book banding poster). We aim to have two main categories that our books fall into: ‘Fully Decodables’ and ‘Share with Me’ books. From the ‘Little Wandle – Letters and Sounds Revised’ phonic phases, we aim to have a selection of fully-decodable books on offer for our children. These books have been purchased alongside the ‘Little Wandle’ programme and fully match the children’s phonic and reading lessons in school. These books are to be kept separate from the rest of our scheme and are utilised by the EYFS and KS1 staff as they implement and teach our SSP programme. Or, they are to be used by children from Y2-Y4 who may require additional support with their reading skills (Rapid Catch Up). Our ‘Share with Me’ range is fully accessible by everyone in school and aims to provide richer reading opportunities. These texts are not fully-decodable and should always be read with an adult at home or at school. But they provide our children with the opportunity to practise and consolidate their word reading skills through phonically-based texts and to deepen their comprehension skills through engaging and rich texts.
Our aim with the reading books we provide is to:
- Teach – using systematic, synthetic phonics (Little Wandle) with books that consolidate and embed this.
- Practise – with fully decodable books linked to the children’s phase in phonics.
- Offer richer reading – through a huge selection of stories and text types within our ‘Share with Me’ range.
- Make and evidence progress – through the carefully banded texts.
- Support parents – with engaging stories and texts that are accessible for all.
- Allow children the opportunity to choose their own texts within their reading level to promote and encourage excitement around books.
