Reading
“Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the US
Why is reading important?
At St John’s, we strive for our children to embrace ‘life in all its fullness’. A key part of this is enabling children to reach their full potential by both learning to read fluently and developing a lifelong passion for reading.
Being a fluent and confident reader enables a child to access so many other areas of learning. At school we know that making sure that children become engaged with reading from the beginning is therefore one of the most important ways to make a difference to their academic achievement.
Book-related talk introduces children to language that they might not hear in ordinary conversation. This primes them to understand what they read later, in their leisure reading and across the curriculum.
Children who are regularly read to (and with) at home can develop a far more extensive vocabulary than those who aren’t. On average children who never read know 4662 words by the time they are 5, if read to 1–2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3–5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.
In fact, one study has shown that the combined effect of reading books often, going to the library regularly and reading newspapers by the age of 16, saw children make four times greater progress than the advantage children gained from having a parent with a degree.
At St John’s, we encourage children to regularly read both at home and at school. Parents play a huge part in helping their children to develop a positive attitude towards reading. Engaging your child in books prepares them to become committed and enthusiastic readers and can transform their attitudes to reading.