Stoke Damerel is a reading school. Books and reading are at the heart of all that we learn.  At Stoke Damerel Primary Academy, we passionately believe that for our children to participate fully in our society they must first become successful readers. Reading develops children’s language and communication skills, enriches relationships and engenders creativity and imagination. To foster a ‘reading for pleasure’ culture at Stoke Damerel, we read and study our texts together in order to explore ideas and develop curiosity and excitement in our children. We also ensure there is time to encourage children to develop their own, individual passion for reading. We aim to create life-long readers. 

During their time at Stoke Damerel, children are exposed to a wide variety of genres and text types. We teach literacy through high quality literature, whether this is a key text used in the writing lesson, a focused story in guided reading or engaging with a classic novel in a reading for pleasure session.  In addition to this, we teach a rich text-based reading curriculum.  From Foundation Stage to Year 3 there is focused adult support for all children to ensure they develop their key decoding and fluency strategies. Teachers share whole texts with their classes as part of their English teaching, allowing children to access texts that may be beyond their current reading capabilities. As well as these opportunities for reading, Stoke Damerel has regular author visits as well as taking part in World Book Day and the 500 words competition in order to engage our children in the reading process and inspire them to be the life-long readers we wish to develop.