Reading
At St Mary's we are passionate about teaching children to read and helping to develop their love of reading. Our aim is to ensure all children are able to decode text as soon as possible and develop their understanding of texts by reading widely and often from a young age.
Some ideas below may assist you in supporting your child to read; for more information please come into school and discuss with your child's class teacher on ways that we can help you.
Phonics
At St Mary's we use Read Write Inc resources.
Most children learn Set 1 Sounds in reception being able to blend these sounds together to read words and segment words into sounds for spelling. Set 1 sounds are shown here.
We also include;ck, ch,sh,th,ng,nk, qu in Set 1 sounds.
Most children learn Set 2 sounds in reception, these are sounds that have two or three letters in to make one sound. Some people describe these as long vowel sounds.
ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo, ou, oy, ar, or, air ,ir.
We aim for reception children to be able to blend these sounds when reading words and segment these sounds when spellings words.
Most children learn Set 3 sounds in Year 1. These are the alternative spellings of the Set 2 sounds and less common sounds used in English.
ea, oi, a_e, i_e, o_e, u_e, aw, are, ur, er, ow ,ai, oa, ew, ire, ear, ure, tion, cious, tious, e.
Children complete the national phonics screening check in June of Year 1. They are expected to be able to blend words including these Set 3 sounds in order to gain a pass mark.
At St Mary's all pupils are supported to develop written work to the best of their ability. Pupils have daily opportunities to encounter high quality language, both from written texts and teacher interactions. Grammar, punctuation and other specific language elements are taught within the context of both reading and writing. A specific writing process is utilised to support children in their ability to write utilising their skills learnt from an early age.
Assessment in the form of high quality oral feedback and interactive marking, alongside self and peer editing, enables children to improve their writing, building towards the production of quality written outcomes.
Planning for English units is based on quality texts, with units lasting between one and six weeks. Texts can be one specific text (for example Year One studying The Three Little Pigs or Year Six studying Macbeth; a group of texts (newspapers, for example) or a specific genre (works of historical social realism or narrative poetry).
Across the school, pupils have the opportunity to study great works of literature, including texts by Dickens, Shakespeare, Larkin, Hughes and Wilde and are introduced to literature from a range of genres. Quality texts provide opportunities for children to meet objectives drawn from across the National Curriculum for English.
Units planned for cover the teaching of reading, writing (including grammar, punctuation and spelling), performance and spoken language. In addition to this, children are taught aspects of the English curriculum through our integrated curriculum, through guided reading sessions, independent reading, class texts, phonics teaching and discrete spelling and handwriting lessons.
In planning, teachers ensure a balance of purpose (to explain, persuade, inform, describe, instruct, entertain etc.) and audience across each year. Quality outcomes are planned for that are varied, purposeful and increasingly more sustained as the children progress through the school. Outcomes focus on quality rather than quantity with some units having just one or two outcomes depending on the unit length and content.
Each unit should include:
Texts used in whole class teaching often focus on texts which are just slightly above the reading level of the children in the class to ensure progression is made and high aspirations set.
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| Writing Skills Progression |