At Clanfield, reading is at the heart of everything we do. We believe that becoming a fluent and confident reader opens the door to every other subject and helps children develop a lifelong love of learning. By the time children leave Clanfield, they are fluent, confident readers who can understand and enjoy a wide range of texts — fully prepared to access  the KS3 curriculum and continue their journey as lifelong readers.

How do we teach it?

We have worked closely with Hampshire Advisory Services to develop a robust and effective approach to reading.

Across the school, year groups read a wide range of high-quality fiction, non-fiction, heritage texts and poetry linked to themes that reflect our school values — such as the environment, diversity and friendship. It is taught with precision and care so that every child develops the accuracy and fluency needed to become a confident, capable reader. Our approach is carefully sequenced and designed to build strong foundations in word reading, while nurturing fluency, comprehension and a genuine enjoyment of books.

Fluency is at the heart of our approach. Children practise reading accurately, at an appropriate pace and with expression. In lessons, teachers use techniques such as echo reading (where pupils repeat after the teacher) and choral reading (where the class reads together) to strengthen fluency and confidence. We follow a five-day reading cycle where children explore new vocabulary, and through teacher modelling, learn to make inferences, retrieve information and summarise what they have read. 

Children also take part in text marking to explore language and structure, and dialogic talk, where they discuss ideas in depth — listening to others, building on viewpoints and developing shared understanding. Every child has regular opportunities to be read to, to read aloud and to read independently, ensuring reading remains both a joy and a skill for life. Teachers use regular fluency checks, carefully constructed reading sessions and targeted support to make sure every child makes progress. Any gaps are identified quickly so children get the help they need to grow in confidence and skill.

Phonics

At Clanfield, we recognise that reading is made up of many skills — and phonics is one of the most important foundations. We use the Little Wandle phonics programme to support children who still need to strengthen their decoding skills in Key Stage 2.

As a school, we are on a journey to ensure every adult is a teacher of phonics. All staff take part in ongoing training and development, so phonics teaching is confident, consistent, and embedded as part of our rich reading curriculum. Through Little Wandle, children learn to segment and blend sounds to read unfamiliar words, building accuracy, confidence, and fluency.

Targeted small-group phonics interventions and fluency sessions help bridge the gap between completing Little Wandle and becoming confident, independent readers. Regular assessments identify gaps quickly so that support is timely and effective. Phonics is taught consistently across the school, with teachers closely tracking each child’s progress. 

 

 

 

Love for reading

A love for reading is central to life at Clanfield. We want every child to see themselves as a reader — someone who reads for pleasure, curiosity and joy. From sharing stories together to celebrating favourite books, we make reading a valued and enjoyable part of everyday school life.

You can find out more about how we nurture a lifelong love of reading on our Love for reading page!