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What does our English curriculum offer?

Our English curriculum is taught across three main strands Oracy, Reading and Writing. These skills are taught as discrete lessons and also prioritised in the children’s continuous provision and routines throughout the school day.

Oracy

At Tredworth Infant and Nursery Academy we understand that teaching English involves teaching how to speak, read and write and using these skills to learn. It is important we teach the children the explicit knowledge required for pupils to learn effectively and successfully. Knowledge in one domain such as vocabulary can be used across other areas and therefore spoken communication (Oracy) is prioitised throughout the school.  In order to build the children’s Oracy skills we teach Oracy daily using the Read Write Inc ‘Talk through stories’ curriculum and a carefully selected, high quality reading spine. We understand that children with a language gap are four times more likely to be struggling readers as adults. By addressing the word gap we help disadvantaged children develop their vocabulary more quickly.

Reading

Our children begin learning to read and write words in Reception as part of their phonics teaching decoding and transcription remains a priority throughout KS1 alongside ensuring a language rich environment.

Phonics is taught through an accredited synthetic phonics scheme (Read Write Inc). More information on the Read Write inc scheme is available under the Classes and Curriculum heading and the Phonics tab on our website. Research demonstrates that introducing a scheme such as this before the age of six leads to a quicker start in early reading and spelling. It is a school priority to intervene quickly when children are having difficulty and one to one phonics sessions run year round to support small groups of identified pupils. It is proven the children make accelerated progress using this model. All sessions are lead by highly trained staff and we have regular visits from external phonics experts to ensure our teaching practice is up to date and impactful.

We ensure all children have access to decodable books throughout the school, this allows children to practice applying their phonics. The termly low stakes assessment cycle ensures all children receive a reading book appropriate to their reading level and all books the children read independently are carefully matched to their attainment in phonics. These books are just one part of our reading provision; it is important that the children also hear books of all genres read aloud to support their knowledge of narrative structures, syntax knowledge, prosody, contextual knowledge, comprehension and fluency. By hearing an adult read aloud regularly these skills can then be applied by the children in their partner reading and when reading to adults.

Here at Tredworth Infant and Nursery Academy, we pride ourselves on being a school committed to developing a love for reading; this is a golden thread through our school community and curriculum, from the children, to all members of our school staff team. We recognise how important it is to develop a passion for reading in our children, to enable them to be successful learners in all areas of the curriculum and in life beyond our school. It is our intention that the children at Tredworth Infant and Nursery Academy develop the skills to decode age appropriate texts, showing an understanding of what they have read but that they also foster a love for stories and storytelling, reading to both retrieve information and for pleasure.

Throughout the Foundation Stage and KS1 we value approaches to developing early reading including storytelling, developing letter and sound knowledge and singing and rhyming activities. The children are regularly read age appropriate texts and through our school’s spine texts the children are encouraged to learn these stories to further support their understanding.

It is important to us that the children we teach achieve fluency in the early stages of learning to read. This allows the children to read with accuracy and speed. Fluency frees up the children’s working memory which then allows them to focus on comprehension. Repeated practice is an effective way of developing fluency and this is reflected in the way we teach reading at Tredworth Infant and Nursery Academy. Children experience exposure to texts, including exposure to stories and hearing the texts they are reading read aloud. We ensure that vocabulary is pre taught in reading sessions as this in turn supports fluency.

The children’s reading is assessed each term and this determines the texts children are taught. Where intervention is required this is identified promptly to help children keep up not catch up.

There is a strong correlation between engagement and attainment in reading. We have been and continue to work hard to develop an ethos of reading for pleasure and to embed our vision of making every member of the Tredworth Infant and Nursery school community a lover of reading.

Writing

The writing at Tredworth Infant and Nursery Academy is closely linked to our Oracy and Reading.

As a school we harness the success of our accredited systematic phonics scheme, the explicit teaching of key writing skills and tailored our reading spine to create a rich, inspiring writing curriculum.

Drawing on the golden thread of reading, we immerse the children in high quality texts that strive to represent our cohort and broaden their literary horizons. Using these texts, the children are encouraged to read with a writer’s eye. We strongly believe good readers make good writers.

Our teaching team has a wealth of knowledge and using the most up to date research, strategies magpied from the most successful writing schemes and a deep knowledge of the needs of our children, we have developed a writing curriculum tailored to our school community.

Through careful planning we are working to embed a range of pre writing activities including, but not limited to, immersive experiences, role-play, hot seating and story mapping. All of these are valued as building blocks for successful writing outcomes, teaching structure, purpose, an awareness of audience, composition and effect.

Transcription skills include spelling and handwriting, as well as composition. These skills are a focus for our children. We use dictated sentences (hold a sentence) to practice applying these skills so their working memory does not become overloaded by the demands of composition and ensure that sufficient curriculum time is provided for pupil’s to practice these components. The children are then encouraged to build their own sentences before moving on to more extended writing pieces in discrete writing sessions.

Every opportunity to encourage meaningful writing is taken at Tredworth Infant and Nursey Academy starting with mark making for our youngest children in Nursery.

Spelling begins with children learning their phonics, spelling is taught explicitly and regularly practiced. The children learn to spell decodable words (green words) and irregular words (red words).

A Secure knowledge of grammar is needed for composition. Our pupils benefit from being taught how to construct and combine sentences. Teacher modelling followed by extensive deliberate practice allows for the effective teaching of grammar. Our children are given knowledge of what to write as well as how to write as we know it leads to better writing outcomes.

Handwriting requires effort and attention as well as suitable motor skills. Fine and gross motor are prime areas of the foundation curriculum and are prioritised in Nursery and Reception. We understand children become better at handwriting through repeated practice of accurate letter formation. Handwriting is taught formally following the Read Write Inc handwriting scheme.

RWI Questions and Answers - How we teach reading

We have written this for parents. It explains how we teach reading using the Read Write Inc programme.

Learning to read is one of the most important things your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

We teach Read Write Inc to support phonics teaching and learning, our teaching of phonics is consistently good and we teach children with purpose, passion, pace and praise!

For more information about the Read Write Inc scheme please visit the website below. The website has a range of videos and information on how Read Write Inc works and how you can help your child at home.

Find out more about RWInc

How will my child be taught to read?

We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Foundation Stage. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are.

The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.

The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.

The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and build a vocabulary bank to support their writing.

How will I know how well my child is doing?

We will always let you know how well your child is doing.

We use various ways to find out how the children are getting on in reading. We use the information to decide what reading group they should be in. Your child will work with children who are at the same reading level as him or her. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress than the others. Your child will have one-to-one support if we think he or she needs some extra help to keep up.

We also use a reading test so that we can make sure that all our children are at the level that they should be for their age compared to all the children across the country.

In the summer term, the government asks us to do a phonics check of all the Year 1 children. That gives us extra information about their progress. We will talk to you about how well your child has done, and especially if we have any worries at all.

How long will it take to learn to read well?

By the end of Year 2, your child should be able to read aloud books that are at the right level for his or her age. In Year 2 we concentrate more on helping children to understand what they are reading, although this work begins very early on. This happens when the teacher reads to the children and also when the children read their own story book.

How do I know the teaching will be good?

All staff receive regular training and reading is a focus on our school development plan. We believe consistency is key and that it is therefore important that all the teachers and teaching assistants work in the same way. Senior teachers watch other teachers teaching to make sure that the children are learning how we want them to learn. All staff also regularly attend development days where an experienced trainer coaches teachers to ensure their practice is at the highest possible standard.

If you are worried about the teaching or you have any questions, please come to school and talk to us.

What can I do to help? Is there anything that I shouldn't do?

You will be invited to a meeting so that we can explain how we teach reading. Please come and support your child. We would very much like you to know how to help.

Your child will bring different sorts of books home from school. It helps if you know whether this is a book that your child can read on their own or whether this is a book that you should read to them. The teacher will have explained which is which. Please trust your child’s teacher to choose the book(s) that will help your child the most.

Help your child to sound out the letters in words and then to ‘push’ the sounds together to make a whole word. Try not to refer to the letters by their names. Help your child to focus on the sounds.

Sometimes your child might bring home a picture book that they know well. Please don’t say, ‘This is too easy.’ Instead, encourage your child to tell you the story out loud; ask them questions about things that happen or what they think about some of the characters in the story.

We know parents and carers are very busy people. But if you can find time to read to your child as much as possible, it helps him or her to learn about books and stories. They also learn new words and what they mean. Show that you are interested in reading yourself and talk about reading as a family.

Activities you could do at home to support phonics.

1. I spy

2. Flash cards – what words can you make

3. Design / draw/ make and name a alien

4. Can you find road signs and read them?

5. Go on a letter hunt

6. Recognising upper and lower case letters maybe on a walk or in a magazine.

7. How many words can you make with a certain sound in for example – ay – May, say, play.

8. Trace words in sand, rice, salt.

9. Make letters out of natural things – sticks.

10. Phonics snakes and letters.

11. Word searches – parents and child could make.

12. Match the picture to the word/captions or sentence.

13. Sorting objects into initial sounds.

14. Letter formation – practice in mud, sand, rice, salt

Does it matter if my child misses a lesson or two?

It matters a lot if your child misses school. The way we teach children to read is very well organised, so even one missed lesson means that your child has not learnt something that they need to know to be a good reader.

What if he or she finds it difficult to learn to read?

We want children to learn to read, however long it takes us to teach them. We will find out very quickly if your child is finding reading difficult. First, we move children to a different group, so that we can make sure that they have learnt what they need to know. If they still struggle, we give them extra time with an adult, on their own. These adults are specially trained to support these children. Your child will still be in the same group with the other children and won’t miss out on any of the class lessons.

If we have any serious worries about your child’s reading, we will talk to you about this.

Some children take a bit longer to learn to put sounds together to read a word, e.g. c-a-t to make the word ‘cat’. At our meeting, we will explain how you can help your child to do this.

What if my child is diagnosed with dyslexia?

The way we teach reading is especially helpful for children who might be dyslexic. This is because we use a very well-organised programme that has a strong focus on phonics. This is very important for children who find learning to read difficult. If you are worried about your child, please come and talk to us.

My child has difficulty pronouncing some sounds. Will this stop him learning to read through phonics?

This isn’t a problem for learning to read as long as we know what sound the child is trying to say. This is not something to worry about. Many children have a few sounds that they can hear clearly but find it difficult to say, particularly the l-sound, r-sound, w-sound, th-sound, s-sound, sh-sound and j-sound. Often they say a t-sound for the c-sound; “tttssh” for the s-sound; “w” for the r-sound and “r” for the l-sound. You can help your child by encouraging him or her to look at your mouth when you say the sound. Whatever you do, do not make your child feel a failure. They can easily learn to read, even if they find one or two sounds difficult to say.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns. We are here to help.