At St Paul's we love to read and strive to instill a love of reading in your child too. Sharing books at home is an essential part of becoming a reader and beginning what is hopefully a life long pleasure as well as a key skill.

In Reception children bring books home as soon as they start school. During the Autumn Term we will invite you to come into school to find out about how we teach reading at St Paul's and how you can support him at home. Eventually, children will bring three books home each week.

We call these different books, 'I read', 'we read', and 'you read'.

Choose a time when your child isn't too tired to enjoy sharing the books together. Talk about the pictures and what they can see or what is happening.  You could point out any letters from their name or sounds that we have been learning. As they learn new sounds they will begin to blend them together to build words. Please look in the phonics section for more information about this and how you can help them at home.

Your child will also have a reading record for you to write in each time you read together at home. You can make comments or ask questions for us in school but just a quick tick is fine.

Please keep your child's books and reading record in their bag and bring it to school each day.  We change all books every Monday. We suggest reading together at least 3-4 times a week- but there is no limit!

In school we base our learning in books, both fiction and non-fiction. Books are available for the children throughout the day, both inside and outside and across all the areas of learning. Stories are read aloud at least twice a day, this is a special part of the day. The children have a time for independent reading every day, and the opportunity to recommend books to the class as we encourage lots of 'book talk'.

We enjoy visits to the library and especially when Miss Dunn, the librarian, shares a special book with us. We have a system of 'Buddy Reading' with the children in Year 6, they come to our class every fortnight and we can choose books to share with our 'Buddy'. This is always valued by the children in Reception and Year 6. We enjoy inviting other adults to our class to share stories, poems and rhymes or sometimes they just tell us a story about themselves!

If your child has a favourite book at home they would like to share with the class please do let them bring it in, we can take good care of it and it's wonderful to see the children developing their identity as readers.