How We Teach Literacy

Literacy underpins almost every part of a child’s educational journey and beyond. Thriving in literacy supports academic success, whilst improving self-esteem, relationships, empathy and problem. Developing skills in literacy ensures a lifelong love of the written and spoken word.

Reading

Our children are introduced to a wide range of high-quality books from a range of cultures and genres. They learn about the world around them alongside imaginary worlds. Our children engage in a range of discussions, role-plays, songs, and rhymes and begin to develop comprehension skills. They learn the structure of books, understanding that stories have a beginning, middle and end. They learn that we read from left to right and top to bottom.

Talk for Writing

Every week each key group look at a story in depth. They learn key words, they listen to the story, they discuss the characters, create a story map so they can retell it. When they are really confident, they begin innovating the story.

Parents can find the weekly words, the story and then see the story map through the Newsletter

Phonics

Our children take part in daily phase one phonic sessions. Through active, fun activities they learn to tune into sounds in their environment, distinguish between them, and segment the sounds in words. These are vital skills that will ensure that they are ready for phase 2 in Reception where they begin to link sounds to letters.

Supportive Environment:

We provide a range of books both in school and that can be borrowed.
We provide rich resources that supplement story telling.
We offer a range mark-making resources both indoor and out.

Writing

All children under 5 need plenty of opportunities to develop fine motor muscles. We provide daily ‘busy finger’ sessions that are carefully designed to strengthen these muscles. Developing fine motor control is for holding and controlling writing tools at a later point. Our children are given ample opportunity to experiment with mark-making using thick pens, chalk and paintbrushes alongside more traditional tools such as pencils and pens.

Family Involvement

Our family book shed provides reading materials for the whole family to borrow.
Story sacks can be borrowed to provide enriched reading experiences.
Busy finger packs can be borrowed to support fine motor development at home.
Across the year every child will be gifted high quality books for their home library.