English

Phonics

Phonics is taught daily in Reception and Key Stage 1 through multi-sensory and interactive lessons. We use the ‘Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds’ programme which aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right, as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills to children starting at the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. Children are always given the opportunity to practice their new knowledge through reading and writing activities. Parents are invited to information meetings to find out about the school’s approach to phonics and to understand early reading and writing development. Children take the national Phonics Screening Test in the summer term in Year 1.

More information can be found on our Early Reading at:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Reading

Being able to read helps us to:

Become good writers as we bring what we have read in books to our own writing. 

It allows us to access all subjects with confidence in our broad and varied curriculum.

Explore our own interests within the wider world.

Ensures we have the ability to communicate with others fluently.

Guided Reading

This takes place in school every day. Guided reading is an instructional approach that involves a teacher working with a small group of students who demonstrate similar reading behaviours and can read similar levels of texts. The small group model allows students to be taught in a way that is intended to be more focused on their specific needs, accelerating their progress.

High-quality fiction and nonfiction texts are used by the teacher to develop the range of comprehension skills required to be a successful reader.

These are:

Monitoring comprehension: Actively keeping track of one’s thinking and adjusting strategies to the text at hand

Visualizing: Making mental pictures or sensory images as one reads

Connecting: Linking what’s in the text to personal experience, world events, or other texts

Questioning: Actively wondering about the text, watching for uncertainties in it, and interrogating the text and the author

Inferring: Predicting, hypothesizing, interpreting, and drawing conclusions about the text

Determine importance: Making judgments and weighing the values of the text or the author

Synthesizing: Retelling and/or summarizing a text and remembering information from it

Think Aloud

This is a whole school initiative used to hook children into a text and explore the features it what is being read. During this lesson, a text is shared as a class with opportunities to explore vocabulary, and grammar structures and think aloud about questions children might have about what has been read. It is a chance to unpick a text and adventurous words and phrases or writing features so children can use these to uplevel their own writing.

Whole-Class Reading: The importance of a daily whole class read is enjoying a book for a book’s sake! The whole class read whether it’s a longer novel or a picture book, is an essential part of the primary school classroom. It is a very important way that teachers to model enthusiasm for reading books and create magic and excitement around the special joy of reading a good book. Reading by a class teacher is one of the most important things we can do in the classroom, as research shows that it has a positive effect on reading achievement and the life-long love of reading. Each teacher has a dedicated slot where they read a high-quality novel to their class every day.

Reading at Home

We ask parents for help and involvement to ensure their children are becoming the best readers they can be. Research has proven parents reading with their children for 10 minutes each day is one of the best ways they can support their education. A report from the National Literacy Trust suggested that young people who read outside class were 13 times more likely to read above the expected level for their age.

Reading for enjoyment is vital. It is important that adults and children are choosing as wide a variety of books as possible, taking it in turns to read, talking about the book and making sure the child understands any new or unusual words.

‘Top Tips for parents/carers reading at home:

Even 10 minutes a day reading with your child is a major help

Choose a wide variety of books and text, both fiction and non-fiction: to introduce different types of language and style – it could also be magazines and newspapers, or articles from the internet.

Take turns to read aloud to each other. They can learn from your expressive reading and you can check they are not struggling

Ask questions about the book - it may be about what might happen next or a character's motivation – Reading Diaries offer suggestions of what to ask your child about a text

Make sure they understand any new or unusual words or phrases

Enjoy it - "try and lose yourselves in a good story”

Parents are really important reading role models and our research shows that children's attitudes to reading improve the more they see their parents read

Holy Family School expectations for reading at home:

Reading is done at home on a daily basis for a minimum of 10 minutes.

In EYFS / KS1 pupil's book choices are mostly guided by the class teacher / TA.

In KS2 sometimes book choice will be guided by teacher / TA / SENDCo and mostly it will be pupil choice.

In Reading Diaries there is a record of which book your child is reading each day and the pages they have read from and to.

Make a comment on how well your child has read, indicate success, areas for improvement, challenges or concerns.

Parents sign their child’s Reading Diary each day to confirm that they know their child has read each day.

Writing

We recognise the importance of children learning the skill of writing. We acknowledge its significance as a means of communicating and recording ideas, opinions and knowledge, but we also encourage the children to value its role in supporting their thinking and learning. We strive to give them ownership of this tool so that they can use it to shape, organise, and refine their thought processes in a variety of learning contexts.

At Holy Family, for writing, we use a core text approach using high-quality text and resources which are directly linked to 'Cornerstones' topics. This high-quality literature is used to engage and inspire the pupils, and provide rich models of writing for them to imitate in their own independent writing, through style, voice and language structure. The variety of 'Cornerstones' topics allow children to explore new learning and interests through their cross-curricular writing; keeping them excited and engaged. Children are given the opportunity to write in a wide variety of genres, using their own writer’s voice and being encouraged to express their creativity and explore their imagination.

Children engage in a range of writing opportunities through well-structured teaching sequences which will include drama, hot seating, collaborative group work, paired work, teacher modelling, draft composition, editing, up-levelling and publishing. 'Think Aloud' sessions are all about talking about writing, ensuring there are opportunities for pupils to discuss writing styles and features of writing, and empowering their writer's voice.

We also ensure that children understand the importance of high quality writing in other curriculum areas and ensure they are accessing non-fiction styles of writing in core subjects such as Science, History, Geography and Religious Education.

Spelling

Alongside phonics, children are also taught how to spell from Year 1 onwards. Learning to spell is an important skill to acquire to assist them to be fluent writers in all areas of learning and as an essential tool to use in everyday life. We teach spelling using an investigational approach focusing on spelling patterns, prefixes and suffixes, and knowledge of word origin and root words. We ensure that pupils can use spelling in the context of their meaning. There are weekly spelling tests and spelling homework. Year 2 and Year 6 both have end of key stage spelling assessments.

Please see the attached National Curriculum Appendices for required knowledge of spelling in each year group.

Grammar & Punctuation

Grammar and punctuation are taught during writing lessons, through learning linked to the core text and the writing genre, to ensure it is learnt in context. Language and punctuation skills are taught through analysis of the author’s use of effective vocabulary choices, language structures and writing style, and by using the core text as a model during the writing process. It is also taught in separate grammar lessons in order to reinforce and consolidate key grammatical concepts. Year 2 and Year 6 both have end of key stage grammar assessments.

Handwriting

At Holy Family, we place high importance on the presentation of work through high-quality handwriting. This begins in Reception with initial mark-making and the correct orientation of letters and continues through Year 1 to Year 6 with weekly handwriting lessons and homework. Children are taught a cursive style of handwriting and where to join letters correctly. It is the expectation that by the end of Year 3 all children are using joined cursive handwriting.

A ‘Pen License’ certificate is awarded to a pupil when their teacher feels their handwriting is fluent and proficient enough to use a pen instead of a pencil.

For more information on handwriting please refer to our Handwriting Policy (below) and accompanying correct orientation, letter family and cursive join information document.