English
Intent
At All Saints Church of England Infant School, we believe that literacy and communication are key life skills. Through the English curriculum, we will help children develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to communicate effectively and creatively through spoken and written language and equip them with the skills to become lifelong learners. Literacy is at the heart of all children’s learning. At the end of their time at All Saint’s we strive for all children to be reading at an age-appropriate level in order for them to access the Key Stage 2 Curriculum. We aim for children to have the language skills necessary to communicate effectively for a variety of purposes. Children will have legible handwriting and an understanding of the spelling and grammar needed to be successful writers.
Implementation
Reading and Phonics
At All Saints we teach reading through the government approved systematic synthetic phonics scheme Monster Phonics. It teaches phonics in a comprehensive structured progression but provides additional multi-sensory support to make learning more memorable and engaging. It uses colour coding and monster sound cues to support learning when children encounter long vowels, silent letters, and tricky letters. This additional support is used consistently and then cleverly phased out, creating confident independent readers. It’s not just about the colours; the monsters themselves each represent a sound which brings phonics to life. This creates engagement and speeds up the learning process for everyone. Phonics is taught daily from Reception through to Year 2 in 20-30 minute sessions.
1:1 Reading
Each week all children will have an opportunity to read 1:1 with a member of the teaching staff. The children’s progress against the national curriculum objectives will be monitored via a highlighted sheet in the reading folders. Children’s next steps will be based on a curriculum objective and shared with parents in the reading diaries. Parents are encouraged to read with their children daily and to engage and respond to the next steps in the diary. It is our intent that the reading diaries will be an open dialogue between parents and their class teacher.
Children will have two Monster Phonics reading books to take home that will be changed weekly. These books need to closely match the phonics that the children know and should be read with fluency, the aim of these books is for children to rehearse what they already know at home.
Children will be assessed as to whether they are ready to move up a reading stage and this will be decided by the children’s class teacher. If a child gets to the end of a reading stage and the teacher does not believe they are secure to move onto the next stage the teacher will have a discussion with parents to inform them why the child will be repeating a stage. Based on individual circumstances and the knowledge of the child the teacher may use their discretion and personal judgment to decide whether the child can take the next stage up alongside the repeated stage.
Comprehension
Monster Phonics books include opportunities to answer comprehension questions. Teachers and parents should ask these comprehension questions during 1:1 reads. There are also comprehension questions included in the national curriculum sheets mentioned previously in the reading folders. Teachers should ask these questions and share them as next steps where necessary. Teachers in Year 2 will teach comprehension lessons during English sessions at their own discretion.
Reading for Pleasure
At All Saint’s we acknowledge that although learning to read is the aim of our English Curriculum we are aware of the importance of reading for pleasure as a way of creating lifelong readers. Children at All Saints have an opportunity to visit our school library weekly and take a book home that is solely for reading for pleasure. We encourage children to choose a book that is beyond their reading level and one that follows their interests to be shared with an adult at home. Year R and Year 2 children are involved in ‘reading buddies’ once a half term where the Year 2 children enjoy the responsibility of reading to the Year R children. At All Saint’s parents can volunteer to be ‘mystery readers’ where they dress up and read a story to their children’s class on a Friday afternoon. This is an exciting opportunity for parents to share a love of reading and has become a firm favourite throughout the years. During the Autumn Term teachers host a bedtime story where children come back to school in their pyjamas and listen to bedtime stories read by their teachers, this enforces the idea that reading is a joyful activity that can happen at different times of day.
At All Saints we celebrate Book Week each year, children and all staff are encouraged to dress up as their favourite character and a day is dedicated to celebrating books. During this week children are encouraged to complete the extreme reading challenge. Over the summer the encouragement to read does not stop and pupils are celebrated for joining in with the local library summers reading challenge. There is a protected daily story time for each year group at the end of the day. This is where the children enjoy a story read by the class teacher. This can either be a chapter book or picture book depending on the year group.
Writing
Teaching and Learning
At All Saint’s we follow Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing model to teach writing. The Talk for Writing process uses high quality model texts for the children to learn the structure of the story through repetition. The children begin the process with a ‘cold task’ where the children establish the key features of the model text and the teacher can assess what gaps there are in the student’s knowledge and what will need to be taught during this unit. The children will then have a hook which will get them interested in the learning before sharing the model text via a story map. During the imitation phase the children will learn the story through actions, learn the SPAG needed to be successful and have comprehension lessons to understand the text better. During the innovation phase the children will make small changes to the story and using a co-constructed toolkit (success criteria) and shared writing as a class they will create their own innovated stories. In the final independent application phase, the children will apply all they have learnt to write an independent piece.
In Reception & Year 1 children will create story mountains to plan their innovated version of the text. In Year 2 children progress to ‘boxing up’ their versions of the text.
In Key Stage 1 children will focus on one piece of fiction writing per half term and one piece of non-fiction writing per half term. Children will also have a poetry unit once a term. Additional details can be found in the Writing Long Term Plan.
Handwriting
Children are taught handwriting through daily phonics sessions and using the LetterJoins scheme. In Reception children are taught to write in print progressing to pre-cursive in Year 1 with the final aim of cursive handwriting by the end of Year 2. More information on handwriting can be found in the handwriting policy.
Spelling
At All Saint’s spelling is taught daily through the Monster Phonics Scheme. Children are given the opportunity to practice spelling words with the specific sound taught that day. In Year 1 and Year 2 children progress to having weekly spelling tests. The spellings are shared termly via the year group specific spelling card. In these tests the children learn spellings based on a specific sound that they have previously learnt. The marks for the spelling test are recorded in their spelling books and shared with parents weekly.
Impact
As a result of our robust and well-planned curriculum, ongoing formative and summative assessment and moderation our children will be able to:
- Read easily, fluently and with good understanding.
- Develop the habit of reading widely and often for pleasure.
- Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.
- Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
- Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas using stem sentences.
We will provide the means for children to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. Rigorous assessment and review will ensure that we are able to provide targeted support so that all children experience success in literacy; we believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.
English Progression of Skills and Knowledge in Chronological Order
Progression of Skills and Knowledge in Reading
