Here at Woodthorpe Infant school we want every child to love the subject ‘English’. We work hard to ensure that every child enjoys reading.

Books are at the heart of our English curriculum and all literacy lessons are based around an engaging text. We have a wonderful WIS reading journey which is planned from the day the children start with us until the day they leave. On this journey, the children encounter all sorts of engaging texts which enable us to teach and learn spoken language, reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation.

Intent

The intent for Literacy is based on our curriculum driver: be brave. This driver will be evident in every literacy session and staff and children will be able to explain how they are being brave. Through daily phonics lessons the children learn the skills to become confident and independent readers and spellers.

We want every child to love reading too and so the children at WIS go on a carefully planned reading journey. English lessons provide the children with a deep understanding of high-quality, diverse texts from a broad range of genres. We have chosen these texts because they are exciting and engaging and will promote a love of reading. The children will become very familiar with these texts. This familiarity will support and inspire the children in their writing and will ensure that they develop a love of writing too. We ensure that the texts we use are representative of our diverse society, have clear links to the national curriculum for English and Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and are fun. The children are also exposed to a wide variety of texts and genres through our daily story times, our ‘sharing books’ and our ‘reading practice books’.

We encourage the children to further develop their speaking, listening, comprehension and writing skills through inspiring activities which motivate and challenge them. As a result, we want children to become confident, independent speakers, listeners, readers and writers.

Implementation

Daily phonics lessons start from week 2 at the start of F2. We follow the Little Wandle scheme. Children are taught in whole-class groups and are assessed formally every half term and informally daily and weekly. Children who are not maintaining pace and progression receive keep-ups with teaching assistants and teachers.

Group reading practice sessions are taught from week 4 in F2 until the end of year 1. These are three reading sessions per week which focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension. In year 2, we introduce three whole class reading sessions each week to replace reading practice although some children will continue to receive reading practice sessions in addition to whole class reading. Every class has a dedicated story time in the afternoon. On Wednesdays there is a focus on geography and other cultures in our ‘World on Wednesday’ story times.

Whole class English lessons take place in Key Stage 1 and Foundation 2. Grammar is taught through the English lesson and embedded through the WIS quiz. Regular oral rehearsal of the ‘rhyme of the week’ ensures that F2 children experience and say a wide range of poetry and rhyme. KS1 lessons include a whole-class input focused on the key text. Children then work independently to access open-ended learning challenges which are accessible to all children. The children are then encouraged to reflect on, share and improve their learning during the plenary. We are introducing 'Talk for Writing' over the course of the 2023/2024 academic year to develop familiarity with texts and innovate our own.

Impact

All children will be exposed to high quality teaching and learning that contributes to deep learning and changes being made to their long-term memory. They will become confident speakers, listeners, readers and writers, and develop a love of reading and writing due to their exposure to high quality texts and model texts. We assess learning against the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and the National Curriculum objectives. As a school, we understand that deep learning takes place when knowledge and concepts are revisited regularly. This ensures children become confident, independent readers and writers.

Handwriting

The expectation for letter formation changes as our children progress through school. In Foundation 2, children work on forming letters without leads in or lead outs, concentrating on starting and finishing in the correct place.

In Year 1 there is a transition from forming letters without lead ins or lead outs to forming them with lead ins and lead outs. By the end of Year 1, children should be forming all their letters with lead ins and lead outs.

During Year 2, children continue to work on their letter formation with lead ins and lead outs. When children are forming their letters correctly in relation to each other and the line, they will begin to work on joining their writing.