Reading and Writing Intent

At Shustoke, the reading and writing journey begins in the Early Years Foundation Stage, where a multitude of experiential and immersive activities are available for children to learn playfully through stories, mark making and phonics, igniting a passion for these skills at an early age.

As our children move into Key Stage One, the teaching of phonics continues and there is a greater expectation that this knowledge will also be applied to their written work. We encourage children to express themselves clearly and creatively through writing. Our approach nurtures skills in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and handwriting, enabling students to write with clarity and confidence. It is our intention to immerse pupils in the wonders of quality texts from a range of authors, cultures and heritage to instil a love for reading, a passion for discovery and a confidence to explore their imagination, which is then transferred to their writing. We recognise that effective communication is essential for success. Our curriculum supports children in developing strong speaking and listening skills, fostering their ability to express ideas, share opinions, and engage in discussions.

Our English curriculum is designed to be flexible and interconnected with other areas of learning. We promote literacy across all subjects, encouraging children to use their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in various contexts, thus reinforcing their understanding and application of English in the wider world, and allowing our pupils to flourish and let their light shine.

Implementation

Class texts

Our curriculum has been carefully mapped to ensure that every class has a progressive program of high-quality and varied texts that are appealing to our learners. These texts are adapted to meet the needs of our children, and are frequently reviewed. English work is then planned and delivered through the context of these texts.

Phonics and SPaG

Our phonics sessions follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds progression and are systematic and fast-paced. They teach children to decode and encode effectively, and to learn to read and spell tricky and common exception words. The children read decodable books that are perfectly matched to their phonic knowledge.

Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar sessions embed grammar knowledge at the beginning of each year, before pupils progress to extended writing. SPaG sessions support learners to identify words such as homophones and homographs when reading, and teach older learners about the etymology of words. This is mapped across our key stages to ensure progression.

Writing Journey

Our writing journey ensures that children recap text types, genres and story structures in different year groups to build on previous skills: text-type specific features, grammar, punctuation and syntax. Units generally last three weeks and consist of a diagnostic task, text deconstruction using a model text, and contextualised teaching of grammar, punctuation and spelling based upon gaps identified from assessment for learning. In addition to this, the explicit instruction of grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax is delivered as prerequisite learning for each unit. Writing is then organised into sections and children use this opportunity to cohesively organise new and existing grammar, punctuation, spelling and syntax learning. Children are taught to edit and redraft their work before writing a final version, which is assessed to inform future planning.

Drawing Club

Reception Class implement Drawing club during the Autumn and Spring Term. This is where children experience new and extra vocabulary around a story, tale or animation. They then move on to draw their own parts of the story including codes they have made up adding exciting twists to the story. As the children progress, their codes will move on from letters to words and then to captions/sentences that they add to their pictures.

Reading across the Curriculum

Reading and writing is taught across the curriculum, ensuring that skills taught in these lessons are applied in other subjects. Where possible, links are made to the foundation subjects through exciting texts and reading materials.

Reading for Pleasure

We run events and activities to promote reading for pleasure throughout the year. Our children work with a buddy reader to share texts, we host a reading café once a year and we share reading recommendations with our class and wider school community. Furthermore, our curriculum provides access to a range of text types across different genre. Children develop an appreciation of authors, cultures and heritage through exposure to these texts, which can spark an interest in a particular author or genre.

Shared and Guided Reading

During shared reading sessions, the teacher models the reading process to the whole class as an expert reader, providing a high level of support. Teaching objectives are pre-planned and sessions are characterised by explicit teaching of specific reading strategies, oral response and high levels of collaboration. Children of all abilities are included in discussions by differentiated questions.

During Little Wandle reading sessions, which take place three times per week, it is intended that reading provides a forum for pupils to demonstrate what they have learnt about reading. The focus for the reading is concerned with reinforcing and extending strategies and/or objectives already taught in literacy and phonics lessons.   

Wellcomm and Time to Talk

Speaking and listening programs are used to support children with communication and vocabulary delay. These interventions can be initiated at any point in the primary journey, but are particularly useful in the Early Years.

Impact

Outcomes

At the end of each year, we expect the children to have achieved Age Related Expectations (ARE) for their year group. We aspire for some children to progress further and achieve greater depth (GD). Children who have gaps in their knowledge receive appropriate and timely support and intervention in order to rapidly move them back on track.

• Reading records show that children read widely, and comments made during reading discussions show that children read for enjoyment and pleasure.
• Reading and writing results in EYFS, KS1 and KS2 SATs compare favourably to consortium, county and national reading scores.
• Book trawls identify writing progress across the curriculum.
• Children are confident to contribute to whole class book talk discussions.
• Classroom visits evidence inviting reading areas where children regularly choose books that they enjoy reading.
• The English Subject Leader completes a reading questionnaire with a selection of children. Results show that children read widely and that their reading books match their reading competence.
• Uptake of reading activities such as the Summer Reading Challenge  and Rainbow Reading Challenge demonstrates interest and engagement in reading.

Evidence in skills

Children are taught reading and writing progressively and at a pace appropriate to each individual child. Teachers' subject knowledge ensures that skills taught are matched to National Curriculum objectives.

Evidence in knowledge

Pupils can make links between texts and the different themes and genres within them. They can recognise similarities and differences. Children understand the reading and writing process.

Pupil Voice

Through discussion and feedback, children talk enthusiastically about reading and different genres of writing, thus understanding the importance of this subject. In addition, they can talk about books and authors they have enjoyed, can make connections with their own experiences, and make reading recommendations.