English at The Meadows
At The Meadows we strive for our children to access an English curriculum that is filled with awe and wonder.
As the foundation to learning across the whole curriculum, we aim, that through our teaching of English we empower our children to be successful in all subjects. Creative and immersive sequences of lessons, support pupils to make rich connections between all their learning experiences and ensure their understanding of key concepts is deepened.
We provide our children with opportunities and experiences to give meaning and purpose to the words they read and write. Our aim is to immerse pupils in the wonders of quality texts to instil a love for reading and a confidence to explore their imagination.
With an emphasis on vocabulary we create opportunities for speaking and listening to enable children to be able to communicate effectively. We strive to teach our children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world and the opportunities they all have the potential to explore.
What your child will learn:
Speaking & listening:
- Listen carefully, discriminating sounds, following directions, understanding expectations and making sense of oral communication.
- Develop an increasing store of words, simultaneously making links between known and new vocabulary.
- Speak clearly and convey ideas confidently using Standard English.
- Justify ideas with reasons, asking questions to check understanding, developing vocabulary and building knowledge, negotiating, evaluating and building on the ideas of others.
Reading:
- Read easily, fluently, silently and with good understanding.
- Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
- Develop a wide range of vocabulary.
- Build an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage.
Writing:
- Write accurately and coherently, in the appropriate form, for a range of contexts, audiences and purposes.
- Write at length through the development of writing stamina.
- Write with accurate spelling and punctuation.
- Use a variety of grammar correctly.
The Meadows Primary Academy is proud to be an Ambassador School for Pathways to Write. This programme is firmly embedded within our curriculum and plays a significant role in securing the outcomes we achieve through the Pathways mastery approach.
As an Ambassador School, we ensure that all staff are fully trained and confident in delivering the programme consistently. Our learning environments reflect the ethos of Pathways Literacy and celebrate the achievements of our pupils.
Professionals who wish to learn more about Pathways Literacy are encouraged to contact us via the details provided in the contact section of our website. We welcome enquiries by email or telephone and are pleased to arrange visits to our school.
Further information can also be found by visiting www.theliteracycompany.co.uk where you can speak directly with a consultant.
Reading
At The Meadows, we believe that the best way to ensure that pupils do well in English is to ensure that they become life-long engaged readers.
Children and staff at The Meadows are enthusiastic readers and we endeavour to foster a love and passion for reading in our children from the outset. To this end, we hold a variety of whole school events throughout the year to encourage and develop the passion for reading. Reading is taught through Read Write Inc phonics and then through vipers reading lessons which focuses on: Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation and Summary. Through our reading lessons, we endeavour to instil a love of reading.
We ensure that teachers make regular recommendations to pupils to encourage reading for pleasure.
Reading for pleasure at the Meadows Primary Academy aims to establish each child as a lifetime reader based on developing a love of reading. We ensure our children are given a rich curriculum which encourages reading of books and other kinds of texts.
We aim to promote the concepts of reading for ‘fun’, ‘enjoyment’ and ‘pleasure’.
What the Meadows does to promote reading for pleasure:
- We have age-related fiction and non-fiction within each class via the class book corner.
- Through our vipers reading lessons, we explore rich vocabulary and complete shared class reading through echo and choral reading to engage and give opportunities to discuss books as a class.
- Daily Storytime sessions are held throughout the school
- Children have access to the school library as a class during school time and at break and lunchtime
- we have reading ambassadors who support the running of the library
- Reading takes place both in and outside of the classroom. We have a reading library on the KS1 yard and benches on the Ks2 yard where children can read.
- The school encourages links with parents by ensuring every child has access to online nooks and quizzes through Oxford Owl and Reading Buddy.
- We also ensure that teachers make regular recommendations to pupils to encourage reading for pleasure.
- We invite authors in to run our awards and emphasise the importance of reading
- In addition, we celebrate reading through themed days e.g. World Book Day and invite parents in as ‘mystery readers.’
How We Teach your Children to Read
Every child deserves success right from the start. We know that the sooner children learn to read, the greater their success at school. This is why we put reading at the heart of what we do.
We use a teaching programme called Read Write Inc. to teach our children to read and write.
What is Read Write Inc?
Read Write Inc. (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. We begin the programme in Nursery and will continue teaching RWI to children until they can read fluently.
RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at Ruth Miskin |Parents and Carers.
How will RWI be taught?
During this time, we group children by their reading progress for 45 minutes a day. For the children who recognise single letter sounds and can blend them together to read words, this is made up of a 10 minute phonics session and a 35 minutes reading session. For the children who are not at this stage, the session is a 30 minutes phonics session where they will learn sounds and blending. We re-assess children every half-term so we can place them in the group where they’ll make the most progress. We provide extra daily one-to-one sessions for children who need a bit of a boost to keep up.
How do we make phonics easy for children to learn?
Read Write Inc. Phonics depends upon children learning to read and write sounds effortlessly, so we make it simple and fun.
Children learn to read words by sound-blending using a frog called Fred. Fred says the sounds and children help him blend the sounds to read each word. Children learn to do this orally first.
We teach them one way to read and write the 40+ sounds in English. We use pictures to help, for example we make ‘a’ into the shape of an apple, ‘f’ into the shape of a flower. These pictures help all children, especially slower-starters, to read the sounds easily.
Set 1
Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending. Please do not use letter names at this early stage. Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
Set 2 & 3
The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds. Set 3 teaches children the different spellings of the same sounds, for example, they learn that the sound ‘ay’ is written ay, a-e and ai; the sound ‘ee’ is written ee, e and ea. We use phrases to help them remember each sound for example: ay, may I play; a-e – make a cake?
Nonsense words (Alien words)
As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer ter
How do we ensure children can read every book?
The first thing we do is to give children books we know they can read – without any guessing. (We read lots of other stories to them, but do not expect them to read these yet.)
Before they read the story, they sound out the names of characters and new words, practise reading any of the ‘tricky red’ words, and tell them a thought-provoking introduction to get them excited about the story.
Then, over four days, children read the story three times: first to focus on reading the words carefully; the second and third to help them read the story fluently; and on the forth, we talk about the story together for example, how characters might be feeling and why. Children will then bring a book home that is matched phonetically to the book they have read in school.
Phonics Progression
The below tables show the progression within phonics groups and which colour is expected at each term. To support your child with phonics, please see the parent materials.
How do we teach children to spell confidently?
We use just two simple activities: Fred Fingers to spell regular words and Red Rhythms for tricky words.
Fred Fingers
We teach children to spell using ‘Fred Fingers’: we say a word and then children pinch the sounds onto their fingers and write the word, sound by sound.
Red Rhythms
We teach tricky words with Red Rhythms. We say the tricky letters in a puzzled or annoyed voice and build the letter names up into a rhythm, for example, s-ai-d.
At the end of Key Stage One and continuing through Key Stage Two, we develop reading comprehension through our whole class reading sessions.
To support children’s learning, we use the VIPERS teaching approach. The VIPERS mnemonic helps our children to recall the main comprehension skills of Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, and Sequence or Summarise. High quality, appropriately challenging texts are chosen that link to all areas of our curriculum, and over a course of each half-term, children will have been exposed to fiction, non-fiction and poetry. As the texts are carefully planned twe ensure that child are exposed to a wide range of genres and deliberate links are made to our wider curriculum to aid retention and retrieval of key facts.
In addition, we also use Whole Class Reading to explore class novels in more depth. In these sessions, children are given the opportunity to consider authors’ intent; make connections and comparisons; and reflect on their own reactions as readers.
Oxford Reading Buddy:
Oxford Reading Buddy is a digital tool that creates an adaptive, personalised reading journey for each child based on assessment. This ensures children are reading a text at the right level. As the children work to develop the skills and stamina required for extended reading with good comprehension, they will be presented with personalised scaffolding to build independent reading skills. Vocabulary is taught explicitly and within context.
Reading resources when our phonics programme has been completed consists of:
- Independent Reading: access to daily reading books, books are linked toReading Age
- Oxford Reading Buddy: Vocabulary, Visual skills and Reading
- Etymology and Morphology (Spelling Shed Spelling)
- Reading Aloud for Pleasure: daily sessions with author studies
At The Meadows we believe that reading should be a fundamental part of childhood and a skill which should be developed to support lifelong learning.
Our aim is to develop and embed a strong, sustainable reading culture within the school community. Confident and competent readers will foster a love of reading through a rich and varied experience of texts, in which they are empowered to exercise freedoms of choice and independence.
Inspiring children to read is their fundamental right. It underpins all learning and secures a good trajectory for personal development and an understanding the world in which they live.
Story Time
Story time is a prized part of our school day. Every year group has story time at least 4 times a week. Choosing books from our carefully designed Reading Spine, teachers share their own enjoyment of high-quality texts with the children in their class or from across school and effectively model expert reading.
Our Reading spine is designed to support Reading for Pleasure and Diversity.
Reading for Pleasure Spine
This spine has a range of themed books which supports our curriculum. We would like all children to develop a love of reading and understand which books they like to read and why they like to read them. All of the books are linked to one of our school values:
- Resilience
- Respect
- Team Work
- Aspiration
- Curiosity
- Kindness.
Diversity Spine
This spine contains a variety of high-quality books which we would like to read with your class at least three times a week. These stories promote enjoyment, diversity and our school values.
Home Reading
Each week, children bring home books to share and read with an adult. This will include, when appropriate, a book at their phonics level or a 'book-banded level' and also a book of their choice. We hope all parents and carers will spend time reading with and talking to their child about what they read and help them to use their reading records to note their enjoyment of reading.
Children should read 3 times a week at home. Children will receive the following incentives for reading at home:
30 reads = Certificate
50 reads = badge
80 reads = bookmark
100 reads = wristband
150 reads = book
200 reads = raffle ticket
At The Meadows we strongly believe that it is so important for teachers and parents to work together to support children in their learning, both at school and at home.
Reading with your child at home is one of the simplest but most important ways you can help your child. As you share books, you are helping improve your child’s reading skills, vocabulary, and comprehension, but also showing them how important and enjoyable reading is.
Supporting Reading At Home
Using the ‘Pathways to Write’ scheme as a structured basis, our aim is to unlock the complexities of this core element of the curriculum and equip our pupils with lifelong skills, so that they may become masters of writing. From Reception, our children are exposed to high-quality focus texts – fiction and non-fiction, film, and poetry as central stimuli for their writing. We encourage our children to write as readers and develop their appreciation of audience and purpose right from the start of their journey as writers.
Units of work are divided into three stages ‘The Gateway’ – otherwise known as ‘the hook’ – igniting children’s awe and wonder of the new unit of work. We then move to ‘The Pathway’, where we teach and repeat key skills. These key skills are practised and applied in a range of contexts through daily writing opportunities. Finally, ‘The Writeaway’. This concluding part of the unit is when children complete their final written outcome showcasing the skills they have developed through the unit.
Mastery keys denote the year group objectives. Mastery keys are planned for each unit and our progression document illustrates the building blocks in the teaching of writing skills across the school. The teaching of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary is woven into each sequence of work and is enhanced, when appropriate, by pre- / post-teaching and rapid response sessions to ensure successful outcomes.
Handwriting
At The Meadows from Year One onwards, we use Letter-Join’s on-line handwriting resource and Lesson Planners as the basis of our handwriting policy as it covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum. In EYFS, we follow a programme called ‘Squiggle whilst you Wiggle’ developed by Shonette Bason-Wood. We believe that in the early years it is important to develop children’s gross motor skills, which we do through dance.
Handwriting is a basic skill that influences the quality of work throughout the curriculum. By the end of Key Stage 2 all pupils should have the ability to produce fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy joined-up handwriting, and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes.
Our intention is to make handwriting an automatic process that does not interfere with creative and mental thinking.
