Reading

Reading at Ickworth Park Primary School

At Ickworth Park Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and enjoy reading for both pleasure and purpose. Our reading curriculum is designed to be ambitious, engaging and accessible for all children, building progressively on knowledge and skills from the Early Years to Year 6.

Our Intent

At Ickworth Park Primary School, we aim to develop enthusiastic, confident readers who have a secure understanding of phonics and comprehension skills, which they can apply independently across the curriculum.

We aim for all pupils to:

Read with fluency, accuracy and understanding
Develop a love of reading for pleasure
Apply their reading skills across a range of subjects
Engage with a wide range of high-quality texts

Reading is taught to be engaging, purposeful and inclusive, ensuring all pupils are supported to achieve their full potential.

Our Approach

We use the systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) Little Wandle: Letters & Sounds Revised to teach early reading in Reception and Key Stage 1. The programme provides a clear progression through all commonly occurring grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs), enabling children to decode and blend sounds to read words with increasing fluency and accuracy.

The teaching of phonics is fast-paced and interactive, ensuring all children actively participate and develop the fundamental skills required to become confident readers.

We enhance this by:

Delivering daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1
Building from shorter sessions in Reception to full-length lessons in Year 1 and 2
Reviewing learning weekly to secure fluency
Beginning phonics teaching from the first week of Reception
Providing guided and independent reading opportunities

We ensure consistency and pace by:

Training all members of staff to deliver phonics effectively
Using consistent language, routines and resources across the school
Following clear progression and structured planning from Little Wandle

Progression

Learning to read begins in the Early Years, where children develop early phonological awareness and begin to decode simple words.

In Reception, children learn Phase 2 and 3 GPCs and begin to read words with increasing fluency and accuracy, including those with adjacent consonants
In Year 1, children build on this knowledge, revisiting earlier phases and progressing to Phase 5 GPCs
In Year 2 and beyond, pupils continue to develop fluency, automaticity and comprehension skills

As pupils move through the school:

In Key Stage 1, pupils secure decoding skills and develop fluency
In Key Stage 2, pupils deepen their comprehension, inference and analytical skills through direct teaching and a wide range of texts

Children build knowledge over time, with learning carefully sequenced, enabling them to revisit key skills and develop deeper understanding.

Inclusion

All pupils are supported to access the reading curriculum through high-quality, inclusive teaching.

Teaching is carefully adapted to meet individual needs through:

Scaffolding, modelling and targeted support
Small group and 1:1 keep-up phonics sessions for children in Reception and Year 1
Access to the Little Wandle SEND pathway
Additional phonics teaching in Year 2 and above for pupils who need further support
Ongoing assessment to quickly identify and prevent gaps in learning

We ensure pupils with SEND can access learning alongside their peers, while also providing appropriate challenge for all learners.

What Makes Reading Special at Ickworth Park

We place a strong emphasis on developing a love of reading and creating meaningful reading experiences.

We support this by:

Reading aloud to children every day
Carefully selecting high-quality texts that both reflect our school community and introduce children to a range of cultures and experiences
Providing inviting and well-resourced classroom book corners
Refreshing reading materials regularly to maintain engagement
Offering opportunities for children to explore a variety of genres and authors

Learning Beyond the Classroom

We support children to continue their reading at home through:

Whole-school themed events, such as World Book Day, strengthen the home–school partnership while promoting a lifelong love of reading in all its forms.
Home reading books matched to their phonic knowledge
Library books available to take home and share
Reading records to support communication between home and school

Library visits are timetabled for all year groups, allowing pupils to choose and enjoy a wide range of texts.

Impact

Children at Ickworth Park leave school as confident, fluent readers who enjoy reading and can apply their skills across the curriculum.

Children develop:

Fluency and accuracy in reading
Strong comprehension skills
A love of reading for pleasure
The ability to discuss and respond thoughtfully to texts

Find Out More

For further information, please see our curriculum maps, long-term plans and supporting documents on this page, or take a closer look at individual class pages.