Overview of Curriculum Subjects: Literacy
Overview of Curriculum Subjects: Literacy
PHONICS Overview
We teach phonics through Read Write Inc (RWI). This is a systematic scheme for the teaching of phonics. Children learn sets of sounds and, when ready, bring home books that they can decode with their growing phonics knowledge.
Children are taught in their RWI phase (rather than age) and are assessed half-term to ensure that they are making progress with their phonics. For children that need additional practice, we use Fast Track Phonics to support them. We also send how links to videos for parents to use with individual children to support their learning at home too (using the RWI online portal).
For more information on RWI, please see the resources and links below. Through the link and the PowerPoint presentation for parents, you can find out how to say the letter sounds and the rhymes that are taught with the letter sounds. You can also find out the order in which the sounds are taught.
Our Preschool uses RWI Nursery to support the introduction of phonic skills.
Read Write Inc Phonics: a guide for parents
Reading Overview
As well as Read Write Inc (RWI), we continue to teach reading through group guided reading and whole-class guided reading. These guided reading sessions focus on fluency, word building as well as comprehension.
Each year, each class also focusses on a selection of books. We have chosen these books carefully to include a range of books that cover the following elements:
- archaic language
- non-linear time sequence
- narratively complex stories
- figurative/symbolic texts
- resistant texts (written to deliberately resist easy meaning-making by readers).
These are five types of texts that children should have access to in order to successfully navigate reading with confidence. These are complex beyond a lexical level and demand more from the reader than other types of books.
Below is a table of the focus books in each year group.
You can also read more books from these text types at home by referring to the Five Plagues Reading Spine.
Writing Overviews
We teach many areas of Literacy writing through a scheme of work. This particularly focusses on Spelling and Grammar (SPAG) as well as some composition work. There is a focus on the learning of vocabulary as well as the application of skills.
We focus on writing skills in other curriculum subjects and teach writing a Golden Sentence (or a Golden Paragraph) in curriculum subjects other than Literacy. We also practise using other grammar and punctuation skills (e.g. conjunctions or fronted adverbials) in other curriculum subjects.
Below are the overviews for each class.
Year 1 Writing Overview
Year 2 Writing Overview
Year 3 Writing Overview
Year 4 Writing Overview
Language and Communication
We know the importance of the word gap in children's language development. We focus on language and vocabulary in all curriculum subjects and have planned a progression in vocabulary across year groups in all subjects.
In our Preschool and Reception, we use WellComm as a speech and language screening toolkit and intervention.