English – Phonics, Reading and Writing – Myddle CE Primary and Nursery School

‘If you just communicate you get by, if you communicate skilfully, you can CREATE miracles’

English Intent Statement:

At Myddle CE Primary School, we intend to equip all pupils with a strong command of communication through spoken and written words and foster a love of literature by encouraging reading for enjoyment.

We plan and deliver a high-quality education in English in order to teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them.

Phonics:

At Myddle, we strive to teach children to read effectively and quickly using the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme (RWI). This includes the teaching of synthetic phonics, sight vocabulary, decoding and encoding words as well as spelling and accurate letter formation.

We strongly believe that teaching children to read and write independently, as quickly as possible is imperative. These skills are not only fundamental but hold the keys to the rest of the curriculum. They also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life chances.

Using the RWI phonics program we teach children to:

read easily, fluently and with good understanding
develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

In practice, children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and are taught how to blend these sounds to decode (read) words. We start by teaching children to read and blend the first thirty Set 1 sounds. Once they have conquered this skill, they start reading stories and texts that have words made up of the sounds they know. This means that they can embed and apply their phonic knowledge and start to build their reading fluency. Once secure, children learn Set 2 and Set 3 sounds and then read texts with increasingly more complex sounds and graphemes. Throughout this process there is a focus on comprehension, reading with expression and reading for enjoyment.

Children are taught in small groups across the foundation stage and Key stage 1, which reflect their phonic knowledge and reading fluency. Children are regularly assessed so that they are taught in a RWI group which matches their current knowledge. We make sure that pupils read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and ability to read ‘tricky words’; so they experience early reading success and gain confidence that they are readers.

Ways to help at home:

Read to them and always discuss the story you are reading to try to build your child’s comprehension skills, inference and understanding.
Practice the sounds they know at home. These are the sounds in the Speed Sound Chart at the start of the storybooks.
Listen to your child read, both their RWI storybook and other storybooks, every day. Make sure that your child brings their RWI Storybook into school every day!
Talk to them! The most important thing you can do is to talk to your child and listen to them when they are talking to you. Try to extend their vocabulary range and their skill at talking in increasingly more complex sentences. For example, try to teach them alternative words for ideas, or nouns they already know.

Below are some useful documents:

Reading at Home Booklet

RWI- Expectations

RWI – Sounds for parents

Phonics sounds Yr 1 and Yr 2

RWI – sound mat and red word lists

Fred Games

The Magic of Stories

You can also visit the parent portal on the RWI website for further information, top tips and techniques. Use the link below:

RWI Parent information

We closely measure progress with teachers drawing upon observations and continuous assessments to ensure children are stretched and challenged, as well as identifying children who may need additional support. Additionally, teachers carry out our individual phonics assessments formally three times a year in Year R and 1 to ensure that the children are ready for the Year 1 Phonics Screening. Children who do not pass the screening in Year 1 have focused intervention in Year 2 and staff continue to use our phonics assessment with these pupils. Further up the school, phonics continues for those who still need additional help. This is done through continued teaching according Phonics teaching and through the Toe-by-Toe, SNIP and Apples and Pears with skilled teaching assistants in small groups or on a 1:1 basis.

The teaching of other imperative reading skills such as retrieval and inference is taught through guided reading sessions in class. In these sessions, and with all texts used in class, stories, poems and non-fiction are chosen to develop pupils’ vocabulary, language comprehension and love of reading.

Reading Intent Statement:

Myddle CE Primary School is passionate about reading!

We value reading as a lifelong skill and are dedicated in our aim to ensure that our children become readers for life who read for pleasure. We encourage every opportunity to read, continually developing reading skills and vocabulary whilst fostering a love of books.

Reading permeates our day: from the moment our pupils come through the door as part of Early Morning Work, through story time, whole school and class worship, across the curriculum and by use of quality texts in whole class teaching.

We believe that reading is key to academic success and take a holistic approach to reading at our school. By the time children leave Myddle, we aim for them to be competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader.

Implementation:

At Myddle, we embed reading across the curriculum, helping children gain the skills necessary to become lifelong learners and understand how to communicate effectively in a wide range of situations for a variety of purposes.

Following on from our Phonics programme, pupils at Myddle, are taught further reading skills through the use of ‘Reading Explorers’. This is a skills-based programme which aims to develop key reading & study skills.

This acclaimed scheme uses a variety of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, which encourages children to access, interpret and understand what they are reading.

It promotes the child’s knowledge and understanding of authorial intent and gives the reader the chance to speculate on the tone and purpose of each text, as well as to consider its wider themes and audience.

The core reading skills covered in this scheme are:

The Retrieval of specific information
Inference, including Deductive Reasoning
Evaluative & Summative Assessment of text
Vocabulary Development: Word Knowledge & Word Choice
Study Skills that promote wider independent study

Developing a love for Reading

We have a well-loved library area in the school, where children can come and borrow books of their choice. Older children take on the role of librarians and encourage other to love and respect books and reading. We are part of the Shropshire Library Gold service and through this, we are able to access e-readers, story sacks and other high quality resources to enhance our reading provision. Our fiction book stock is shared between the classes. Most non-fiction is classified and held in the central library. Children are encouraged to take reading material home each day and to use a home/school diary to record their reading.

Children are allocated their own reading book which is matched to their individual level of reading. This book can be taken home to read and shared with family members and pupils are also given the opportunity to read independently at school at various times during the week.

Buddy Reading

Each week, children pair up with a child from a different class/ year group to read to each other. This is valuable time of the week where children can support each other in their reading. It also gives all children a 1:1 reading opportunity where they can be inspired by their peers at school.

Reading Exchange

We also have a reading exchange storage unit outside of the school building on the playground where children can swap and take home additional books to read and share with family members.

Reading in class

At Myddle, we also believe that it is important for the children to be exposed to a range of high quality texts and for adults to model reading to them. Each class therefore has a class text, selected from Pie Corbett’s reading spine (see links below), which is read each day for at least 10 minutes.

Pie Corbett says…

Great books build the imagination. The more we read aloud expressively, and the more children are able to savour, discuss and reinterpret literature through the arts, the more memorable the characters, places and events become, building an inner world. A child who is read to will have an inner kingdom of unicorns, talking spiders and a knife that cuts into other worlds. The mind is like a ‘tardis’; it may seem small but inside there are many mansions. Each great book develops the imagination and equips the reader with language.

Great stories speak to us as individuals and some children will return to certain books again and again. Great stories also build our language because around 75 per cent of our vocabulary comes from our reading. Reading develops the ability to think in the abstract; to follow lines of thought. Schools that have a reading spine, build a common bank of stories that bind the community together. These are shared and deeply imagined common experiences.

The Reading Spine:

Pie-Corbett-nursery

Pie-Corbett-reception

Writing Intent Statement:

Writing is an integral part of our curriculum. All children from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with a vast array of opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum.

We intend for pupils to be able to develop their fine and gross motors skills in order to plan, revise and evaluate their writing. To be able to do this effectively, pupils will read widely and often and have access to a range of writing in differing genres and styles. They will also develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. We want children to be proud of the writing they produce and encourage a neat, fluent and joined style of writing.

Our writing curriculum aims to:

Deliver daily writing sessions based on the EYFS framework and ‘The Write Stuff’ by Jane Considine; these are planed to link to high-quality texts with a rich vocabulary and incorporate both spelling and grammar objectives.
Create opportunities for children write daily and encourage children to apply their writing skills across the curriculum.
Assess writing after each writing unit and then a termly level of attainment is given. This is moderated by English leaders across the federation.
To encourage a neat, joint and fluent style of handwriting. The School follows the ‘Nelson’ handwriting scheme. Good presentation is expected. Children have the opportunity to earn a pen licence.
To ensure children are educated with specific spelling rules in a taught session. Children are provided with additional support when necessary. Spellings are differentiated by rule and the need of the individual.

Implementation:

At Myddle, we have adopted “The Write Stuff” by Jane Considine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing.  “The Write Stuff” follows a method called “Sentence Stacking” which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing.  An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to 3 learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:

Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.

Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.

Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.

Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing during that chunk.

“The Write Stuff” uses three essential components to support children in becoming great writers

The three zones of writing :-

IDEAS – The FANTASTICs uses a child friendly acronym to represent the nine idea lenses through which children can craft their ideas.
TOOLS – The GRAMMARISTICS. The grammar rules of our language system and an accessible way to target weaknesses in pupils grammatical and linguistic structures.
TECHNIQUES – The BOOMTASTICs which helps children capture 10 ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual.

For further information on the ‘Write Stuff’, please read the information in the booklet below:

The Write Stuff Information Booklet

Staff may also plan additional units of writing, covering a range of genres that link specifically to a class topic or class theme. When children are inspired, it is nice to have the flexibility to take them on a writing journey.

TWS – Progression in Genres

Myddle – Writing Genres Long Term Plan

Writing Assessment:

Writing produced at school is assessed against the ‘Performance of Writing’ assessment criteria. Achievement is gaged using a different samples of writing over a range of genres. Writing is assessed against the criteria each half term with a final judgement on overall achievement given at the end of the year.

Spelling:

At Myddle, we follow the Twinkl spelling scheme which covers the statutory requirements of the national curriculum. Along with teaching new spelling rules it also revisits previously learnt spelling rules too.

Each week a new spelling rule is introduced to each year group through a 20 minute session. The rules are then put into practise and reinforced through a range of activities such as, handwriting, word searches, cross words, spelling games and investigations over the remainder of the week.

Support for Spelling

Children that are falling behind in spelling are supported through additional interventions, spelling support in class and personalised spelling lists. Children use programmes such as SNIP and additional phonics sessions to help close the gaps in their spelling.

Speaking Listening

The development of speech and language is identified as one of the most important parts of our EYFS curriculum. Staff work closely with parents/carers and previous nurseries to ensure they are extending and building on the language acquisition necessary.

The promotion, and use of, an accurate and rich cross-curricular vocabulary throughout school is planned and assessed in specific subjects.

A wide range of opportunities to use and develop their speaking and listening skills is planned for. These then feed into the writing process.

Other Documents:

PRIMARY National Curriculum

DFE Phonics Assessment Information