VIPERS Reading Skills at St Peter’s

At St Peter’s, we teach reading with the belief that every child deserves the skills, confidence and curiosity to understand and enjoy the texts they encounter. From Year 3 to Year 6, pupils take part in daily whole‑class guided reading sessions, where we use VIPERS to explicitly teach the key reading skills needed for success in Key Stage 2 and beyond.

VIPERS helps pupils develop the six essential areas of reading identified in the Reading Framework: Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Summarising. Through high‑quality modelling, discussion and practice, pupils learn how to explore language, interpret meaning, justify their ideas and think critically about what they read.

Children read age‑related, carefully chosen texts—including fiction, non‑fiction and poetry—and answer VIPERS questions that deepen their understanding and strengthen their comprehension. This structured approach ensures that pupils build the fluency, confidence and analytical skills needed to access the wider curriculum and to become thoughtful, independent readers.

At St Peter’s, VIPERS forms a key part of our commitment to developing readers who not only read accurately and fluently, but who understand, question and enjoy the texts they encounter.