English

English

Reading

Intent:

At Holywell, we are all READERS. We believe that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to enabling our children to become lifelong readers.

At the heart of our strategy is our drive to foster a love of reading, enriching children’s learning through carefully designed teaching activities that utilise imaginative stories and thought provoking texts.

Reading is a skill that enables children to develop their learning across the wider curriculum and lays the foundations for success in future lines of study and employment. We recognise the importance of taking a consistent approach to the teaching of reading in order to close any gaps and to target the highest possible number of children attaining the expected standard or higher.

We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and pursue success, always ‘being proud of all we do’.

Implementation:

Our teachers use the National Curriculum, Read, Write Inc and Accelerated reader as a basis for planning.

• We use a synthetic phonics programme called RWI. This programme is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words. The children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have daily phonics sessions working through the phases in small group sessions. This continues into Key Stage 2 when necessary.
• All children in Year 3 progress onto the Decision Spelling scheme.  Y2 children will go onto decision spelling when they finish RWI (grey), at this point they also move onto the RWI Literacy comprehension programme, which again is run in small groups.
• In KS2 most children follow a structured approach to reading activities.
• High quality texts and passages are chosen, appropriate to the expectations of the year group or ability of children, and teachers use this to model the application of the agreed reading skills. Children are taught to identify words/phrases they don’t understand and strategies to fix breakdown in meaning. Children are taught to relate the text to themselves, previous reading experiences and the world around them.
• Further to modelled sessions, children have the opportunity to read texts with greater independence and apply their skills when responding to the wide range of domain questions. More complex questions are evaluated between wider groups and teachers model how to refine answers to a high standard.
• Rich reading opportunities are provided across the curriculum, exposing children to a wide range of quality texts providing context to learning.
• We believe that regular reading at home is an important tool in developing reading skills. Levelled titles through Accelerated Reader are used for home-reading to ensure that children experience a wide breadth of reading opportunities across different genre of high-quality books that reflect the diversity of our modern world.
• Children work through the wide variety of books at their own pace. Teachers monitor their progress using AR and use the child’s ZPD (zone of proximal development) to determine the grade of text that the child should be accessing is the right challenge for them. The quizzes on AR ensure that a range of titles have been explored and understood.

Impact:

As we believe that reading is key to all learning, the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the result of statutory assessments. Children have the opportunity to enter the wide and varied magical worlds that reading opens up to them. As they develop their own interest in books, a deep love of literature across a range of genres cultures and styles is enhanced.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics and reading enquiry, our aim is for children to become fluent and confident readers who can apply their knowledge and experience to a range of texts through the Key Stage 2 curriculum.

As a Year 6 reader, transitioning into secondary school, we aspire that children are fluent, confident and able readers, who can access a range of texts for pleasure and enjoyment, as well as use their reading skills to unlock learning in all areas of the curriculum.

In addition to this:

Parents and carers will have a good understanding of how they can support reading at home, and contribute regularly to home-school records.

The % of pupils working at age related expectations and above age related expectations within each year group will be at least in line with national averages and will match the ambitious targets of individual children.

There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g. disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged).

Writing

Intent:

At Holywell, we are all WRITERS. We believe that writing is a key skill for life both inside and out of education and that is why it features across all the subjects taught across our school. Our aim is to provide children with key transferrable writing skills to build on year on year, that can be used throughout each phase of their education, prepare them for secondary school and beyond.

Teaching children to write for a range of purposes and audiences can be very exciting, especially where we provide children with a range of engaging hooks to capture their imagination! We aim to provide the children with varied reasons for writing and believe that this not only produces higher quality writing, but allows our learners to apply their skills to a range of different contexts.

Writing across all subject areas will prepare our children for secondary school and the more in-depth approach to analysing, planning and innovating their writing.

Oracy is prioritised in our writing curriculum in order to build vocabulary for all learners and increase understanding of trickier texts used across our curriculum.

Discussion, questioning and learning texts with actions all increase understanding and prepare our children with the tools they need in order to be successful in their writing.

Our aim is for ALL learners to achieve their full potential in writing and we are committed to providing the scaffolds and challenge needed in order for our children to achieve this.  We have high expectations of all children and we encourage children to challenge themselves, persevere and pursue success – to ‘let their light shine’.

Implementation:

Our teachers use Literacy Tree as a basis for planning.

• Children receive English lessons daily and are exposed to age-related expectations for writing within a range of texts.
• Writing and reading are closely linked and we ensure that children are reading daily in order to build on their knowledge of different genres of writing and develop their vocabulary.
• A high standard of joined, cursive handwriting is modelled across school and children are encouraged to imitate this.
• Handwriting is practised regularly but is expected to be evidenced throughout all work produced.
• Teachers demonstrate high quality modelling within each lesson and encourage children to include key vocabulary (linked to their Topic), structure their work appropriately into coherent paragraphs and use the grammatical skills and punctuation taught at their year group level.
• We intend to develop writing as a transferrable skill across all subjects taught in the curriculum. We therefore immerse children in a termly History/Geography themed topic and encourage cross-curricular links. Our aim is to provide engaging writing hooks that are linked to each termly topic to give children an audience and purpose for writing. Children are expected to transfer their key topic knowledge and vocabulary into their writing and vice versa to transfer their spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge into their topic work. We expect the high standards for writing in Literacy lessons to be evident within the work in all books.
• Children are encouraged to deconstruct texts and identify key features for specific genres of writing. Teachers model the practising of these skills and children then apply them to their own writing. This ability to identify specific features we believe is a key skill across both reading and writing and will improve comprehension in children. As a school, we ensure that genres of writing studied run alongside the learning taking place in Guided reading so that children are fully immersed in the text type.
• We ensure that children are aware of their strengths and areas for development in writing so that learners can take ownership of their progress. Teachers leave next steps in books when marking to ensure that children know exactly what they need to do next to make progress in their writing and children are encouraged to respond to this in purple pen.
• Children who are identified as not achieving age-related outcomes and/or those on the SEND register will receive interventions and support. The nature of the intervention will be decided by the teacher and the SENDCO. Support in class may include small group work with an adult during lessons to model key skills, scaffolds created by the teacher to assist with completion of work and word banks/sentence openers provided to assist the child when writing

Impact:

Assessment in writing is ongoing as teachers carry out assessment of children’s writing at the end of each unit, and highlight the age-related outcomes that have been achieved.

Children are tested twice a year on spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge and this data is used to inform next steps for writing.

Progress across classes is closely monitored by the head and subject leader. Monitoring will include: regular book looks, lesson observations, pupil progress meetings, pupil voice interviews, looking at data and regular learning walks.

The findings of this monitoring will be used to inform next steps for the children and the implementation of writing across the school as a whole.

The % of pupils working at age related expectations and above age related expectations within each year group will be at least in line with national averages and will match the ambitious targets of individual children.

There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g. disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged).

Read, Write, Inc is the phonics scheme we use to teach reading and spelling in Early Years and Key Stage One at Holywell School. We have chosen Read, Write, Inc because we want our children to learn to read as quickly as possible, and then read widely and become lifelong readers. 

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Teaching phonics at Holywell School

We start teaching the programme as soon as your child joins Reception and then continue until they have worked their way through the whole reading scheme, usually this is during Years One or Two. We assess all children on the scheme every 6-8 weeks, to ensure that they are placed in the correct group for their reading ability. This also allows us to quickly identify any children who need some support to access the learning at the level of the group. If this arises, we provide one-to-one tutoring for the child in accordance with the Read, Write, Inc scheme, to help them make rapid progress and once again be at the level of their group. Groups are taught by either teachers or teaching assistants who have had Read, Write, Inc phonics training; in utilising so many staff, we can ensure that groups are kept as small as possible and that the teaching the children receive is tailored to their needs. 

Children begin by learning the Set 1 sounds in a specific order. They also begin learning to blend sounds together to make words after learning the first 5 sounds, firstly through practising oral blending. Then, when they can blend independently, they progress on to reading green words.

 

As soon as children can read green words, they begin to read stories in their Read, Write, Inc sessions. Each storybook is matched to the sounds they can already read, which sets them up for success and helps to build their confidence with reading. It is through these storybooks that we teach children red words, which are irregular words that are not phonetically plausible and cannot be sounded out (Fred talked). Each storybook is taught in the same way, with children practising reading the green words in the story and also the red words, before they begin to read the book. Children will then read the book several times to help build their fluency and comprehension skills. 

• Read, Write, Inc Policy

How to help at home

Read to your child

Even if your child is not yet reading words, it is so important to read stories to them.

Fred Talk

To expose your child to the idea of blending sounds together to make words, break down the words of the simple vocabulary you often use at home. For example, “please pass me that c - u - p”, “let’s sit on the r - u - g”. This will help your child to practise their oral blending as they can repeat the sounds back to you and then say the word. 

Building vocabulary

Children need a rich vocabulary in order to develop high levels of comprehension. The more words your child has in their vocabulary, the more they will understand when they read. You could try using alternative words for things at home, rather than saying you are pleased that they have tidied their toys, you could say that you are delighted, ecstatic, overjoyed. Reading a variety of rich stories to your child will also increase their vocabulary. 

Reading with your child

Your child will bring home reading books to share with you:

• a Book Bag Book which corresponds to the colour band they are on in Read, Write, Inc session.
• a black and white version of the book they are reading in their Read, Write, Inc session (Green and upwards). 
• a library book - a story for you to read to your child to help them develop a love of reading.

When helping your child to decode words at home, it’s really important to pronounce the sounds correctly. Here is a helpful guide to show you how we are teaching your child to pronounce the sounds:

RWI Glossary:

Term	Definition
Fred	Fred is a frog puppet we use in sessions. He can only speak in sounds.
Fred Talk	Sounding out a word, saying each of the sounds before blending.
Fred Fingers	‘Pinching’ each sound from a word on your fingers to help spell a word
Green words	Decodable words
Red words	Irregular words that cannot be sounded out
Story Green words	Decodable words that will be included in the storybook
Speedy Green words	Decodable words in the storybook that children should be able to read at speed rather than     Fred talking first.
Fred in your Head	Still sounding out a word but doing so in your head rather than out loud, helps build fluency.
Special Friends	Two or three letters working together to make one sound e.g. sh, ch, igh, air, a-e.

Useful resources

• Oxford Owl - https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
• Ruth Miskin facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/miskin.education
• Ruth Miskin website, parents section- https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/