Reading Vision

At Sarisbury Infant School, we believe that reading is the foundation for learning, imagination, and lifelong curiosity. Our vision is to nurture a community of enthusiastic, confident readers who find joy, comfort, and inspiration in books every day.

Daily Story Time

Every day, children experience the magic of stories through dedicated daily story time, where teachers model expressive reading, explore language-rich texts, and create shared moments that spark imagination and deepen understanding. These daily sessions help children connect emotionally with books and build a positive reading identity.

A Love of Books and Reading

We aim to cultivate a genuine love of reading, ensuring every child feels excited and empowered to choose books that reflect their interests, identity, and curiosity. Pupils regularly select their own books to read independently and share with others, developing autonomy as readers and pride in their reading choices.

Rich Reading Environments

Children explore a wide variety of texts in environments that are designed to inspire:

• Classroom book corners full of diverse, high‑quality texts
• A well‑resourced school library that encourages exploration and discovery
• Opportunities to enjoy books throughout the day

These spaces help children develop positive reading habits and see books as an enjoyable part of daily school life.

Systematic Phonics and Word Reading

Early reading is taught through a systematic synthetic phonics programme, ensuring every child secures strong word‑reading skills. Daily phonics lessons, supported by matched decodable books, allow children to apply new knowledge quickly and confidently.

Comprehension and Meaning‑Making

Children develop comprehension through:

• Guided reading sessions
• Whole-class reading lessons
• Teacher‑modelled reading behaviours
• Book assemblies that celebrate stories, authors, and themes

Through discussion, questioning, and exposure to rich vocabulary, pupils learn to think deeply about texts and develop strong understanding.

Reading Used to Inspire Learning

High‑quality books are at the heart of our curriculum. Teachers use carefully chosen texts to:

• Model the reading process
• Introduce new ideas and vocabulary
• Inspire writing, topic work, and creative thinking

A well‑planned reading spine ensures all children encounter a diverse and memorable collection of literature during their time at school.

Celebrating Reading Together

Reading is celebrated across the school through:

• Weekly book assemblies
• Whole-class books that build shared reading experiences
• Family reading initiatives
• School-wide reading challenges that motivate and reward effort

Letters and Sounds Reading Book

These reading books are specific to our phonics programme and every week the children will be issued with a new book. These phonic books will be issued every week or every two weeks and every child in the class will be provided with a book that matches their phonic ability.  These books will provide children with the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge of the new sounds as well as practising the key skill of segmenting and blending.

Phase Book

This book will be the children's free choice reading book that they can pick from the class selection. These books are stickered from phase 1 to phase 6. Some of the phases may contain A and B as these phases require more consolidation.  Some of the texts may contain sounds or high frequency words children may not have been exposed to yet. These books are to help promote comprehension skills and the love of reading.

Reading Lessons 

Children have 1:1 reading every week in Early Years. This enables teachers and support assistants to develop children's word reading and comprehension abilities. Children will listen to class texts every day and each class has special books chosen from the library to read and enjoy.

In KS1 children have an even balance of guided and 1:1 reading. The focus of reading in KS1 moves from word reading to comprehension skills. During guided reading sessions children learn to analyse texts, ask and answer questions, how to use non-fiction texts, discuss word meanings and make links between texts already read. During these sessions children will also complete independent reading activities.

Library

We are extremely lucky to have a well-stocked library at Sarisbury Infant School. Children in Early Years are able to visit the library throughout the year with their class to select special books to enjoy together. Once children enter KS1, they have library time once a week. During this time, children are able to select a book to take home and learn library skills. Children are encouraged to pick a book of their choice to share at home.   

As a school we subscribe to Hampshire Library Service which allows us to have up to date books in our library, teachers have access to group texts to use in guided reading and enables teachers to be trained at the Hampshire Library Service library.

This is our reading spine chosen by our teachers. These are the books that every child in our school will be exposed to during their three years here. The books chosen are much loved classics, diverse and we believe will help develop a child's love of reading. Each classroom will have two copies of the text in their book corner that the children can read themselves again and again.