Reading

Ready Steady read together

At St Michael’s, we believe that every child can become a fluent, confident reader, and we are committed to fostering a whole‑school love of reading for pleasure. Building on the firm foundations established through our Little Wandle programme in Early Years and Key Stage 1, pupils are immersed in a rich variety of high‑quality texts as they move through school. From Year 2 to Year 6, teachers use The Ready Steady Read Together program, which is integral to St Michael’s curriculum, to enhance reading skills and comprehension through high-quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. This program aligns with our values of courage, hope, love, forgiveness, trust, community and thankfulness, ensuring that our pupils are not only academically proficient but also embody the virtues we hold dear. The program outlines the approach and strategies for implementing reading comprehension across all year groups, from Year 2 to Year 6, reflecting our commitment to fostering a culture of excellence in education and preparing our students for future success 

Our shared reading curriculum is built around a sequence of high-quality, age-appropriate texts, using Literacy Counts’ Ready Steady Read Together units of learning. This resource provides dynamic and inclusive lessons that integrate metacognitive strategies and feature diverse literature from exceptional authors. It aims to inspire children and families to develop a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge and information.  

The intent is that all pupils, from Tear 2 to Year 6, regardless of their needs, abilities or background, have opportunities to meet, and where possible exceed, the National Curriculum expectations for reading comprehension. Ready Steady Read Together gives every pupil access to high-quality texts, enabling them to experience literature that develops fluency, vocabulary and understanding. Through teacher modelling of expression, pace, intonation and prosody, children learn how skilled readers bring meaning to a text and how these features support comprehension.  Shared reading also creates opportunities for discussion, questioning, drama and exploration of language, which deepen comprehension whilst enhancing oracy skills. Crucially, it ensures that every child, regardless of their decoding ability, can engage with ambitious texts and develop the habit of reading widely and often for both pleasure and learning. 

Ready Steady Read Together units are built around engaging, vocabulary-rich texts and provide a wealth of opportunities for reading, discussion and metacognition. Each unit follows a clear sequence of learning episodes, supports vocabulary development in context and includes structured opportunities for retrieval, fluency and strategy modelling and discussion. Gamification elements and interactive low-stakes quizzes link directly to the KS1 (Year 2) and KS2 (Years 3–6) reading content domains, reinforcing understanding while ensuring progression through the National Curriculum. Progression is actively embedded within teaching to build comprehension skills, word reading, understanding of terminology and knowledge of the content domains step by step, ensuring consistency and clarity across the year groups. 

Reading for pleasure

At St Michael’s, we believe that developing a love of reading is just as important as learning to read. Reading for pleasure plays a crucial role in children’s academic success, creativity and wellbeing. Research shows that children who choose to read regularly develop stronger vocabulary, wider knowledge and greater confidence. 

We actively promote a culture of reading across our school. Every classroom provides access to a wide range of high-quality books, and children are encouraged to read texts that interest them. Each class enjoys a daily shared story, giving pupils the opportunity to experience rich and engaging literature together. 

Our “100 books to read before the end of your key stage” initiative helps children discover new authors and genres, while regular book talk and recommendations from staff inspire pupils to try something new. We also build links with our local library, ensuring children see reading as something that extends beyond the classroom. 

By prioritising reading for pleasure, we aim to nurture lifelong readers who read not only to learn, but because they love to read.