English at Scunthorpe Church Of England Primary
Why we teach reading as we do:
Many pupils in our community are affected by the 30 Million Word Gap. Upon entering school, the children have heard a lot less vocabulary than their peers nationally. In addition, many of our children have English as an additional language and though we celebrate the diversity of languages in our school we are mindful that many of our children do not have the support of English speakers at home to hear them read.
With these factors in mind our first and foremost priority is to expand our children’s breadth of vocabulary. We work to narrow the vocabulary gap by discreetly teaching vocabulary subject specific and expressive language within all subjects. Furthermore, we instil in our children a pleasure and love of reading and as a consequence we work to ensure that our children are able to articulate the books: authors and genres that they enjoy. Our children will be able to make recommendations about books because they have been exposed to a variety of texts. As part of our guided reading our children will read a broad range of literature including classic literature appropriate for their age.
Ultimately, children at Scunthorpe Church Of England Primary learn to read in order to be able to access all aspects of the school curriculum.
Reading in Early Years
Reading is at the heart of our Foundation Stage curriculum. A consistent approach to phonics teaching through The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised programme, teaches children how to segment and blend words, recognise tricky words and apply taught skills.
Alongside our phonics teaching, we develop children’s love of reading rough reading aloud, telling stories, singing songs and learning rhymes, which develop children's engagement, vocabulary and auditory skills. Each teaching space has a cosy book area where children can enjoy books independently or share them with friends. Promoting reading and a love of literature from an early age is key in our Foundation Stage and throughout a child's journey with us.
In nursery children take home ‘chatter books’ pack- these are designed to support early reading skills and further develop an enjoyment of stories and rhymes.
In reception, we send home phonically decodable books, these have been shared three times with a teacher in a small group and enable children to embed their phonic skills. Children will also choose a book of interest (reading for pleasure) which they can share at home.
Each month we share the book which children receive though ‘The imagination library’. Workshops and stay and play sessions are also organised to further support ‘book’ enjoyment.
Book chatter sessions are run for our nursery children as part of their transition into school, each session is based around a book or rhyme, with activities which develop language and literacy skills, develop children’s imagination and emotional well-being.
We are also part of the Book Trust, where children receive a free book and resources to support reading together at home and take part in events to promote this.
Reading For Pleasure
Impact:
- To talk passionately and excitedly about the books that they have read .
- To make recommendations about books and authors
Built into our weekly timetable we set aside time for children to read and share books that are not levelled (ZPD ) During this time children rotate between visiting our school library , visiting Scunthorpe Library and talking books with their class.
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Community Librarian sent our school this message Jan 2022.
"It's great to see the children's library busy with your pupils, they are always well behaved and an absolute pleasure to have. You should be very proud and thank you for bringing them in."
Scunthorpe Church of England Book Spine
Meeting the author...
We have had two authors visit our school this year. Marcia Williams, an award winning illustrator and author, visited Year 5. We have read her books in our English lessons and so were so excited to meet her in person! Reception and Year 1 met Emma Bowden. Emma read her story 'Handstitched Henry' to us all and told us lots of wonderful stories. 
National Story Telling Week
Meet our Reading Ambassadors
World Book Day
Helping your child read at home
Click the link on the left to find more information and help from the Book Trust
The teaching of writing at Scunthorpe Church Of England Primary
Writing in Early Years
In the EYFS we support children’s writing composition by reading carefully chosen stories, talking to children, re-phrasing what they have said and then modelling correct sentence structures. Elements of Jane Considine’s ,The Write Stuff are used which put communication at the heart of our teaching. During literacy lessons children’s language development is nurtured through developing ideas, strengthening talk and widening writing opportunities. We support children to share their ideas during shared writing sessions and in the continuous play provision. Vocabulary is developed and extended using the ‘Grandma’s basket’ scaffold with adult led sessions containing teacher modelling, shared writing and finally moving onto independent writing opportunities.
Writing in KS1 and KS2
At Scunthorpe Church Of England Primary we employ the Jane Consodine Writing Model, The Write Stuff . The Write Stuff model is based on two guiding principles; teaching sequences that slide between experience days and sentence stacking lessons. Central to The Write Stuff is teachers modelling the thinking as a writer process. Lessons are broken into bite-sized writing chunks and taught under the structural framework of The Writing Rainbow. Teachers prepare children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar or techniques of writing.
Teaching Sequence.
Impact of our writing curriculum.
The impact of our writing currciulum is that our children will write to,
- persuade others,
- record information,
- create imaginary worlds,
- express feelings,
- entertain others,
- advise ,
- chronicle experiences,
- explore the meaning of events and situations such as religious festivals.
- Refer to their written work to aide confidence when speaking
- Change and edit ideas so that children are continually improving their writing
- Write when they are ready so they are confident to put their ideas on paper
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