English
At Cramlington Village Primary School we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion (Oracy).
We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often.
We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We aim to encourage children to be successful and avid readers. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and use discussion to communicate and further their learning.
We also believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in spelling, punctuation and grammar, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in English skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.
Oracy
Our Oracy overview document is available here
At CVPS we want pupils:
●To be confident, articulate and engaging speakers.
●To develop their oracy in all curriculum and non-curriculum areas
●To understand that oracy is important for success in school, academic success and in life beyond education
Through oracy they will enhance their learning:
●By teaching pupils to become more effective speakers and listeners
●We empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them.
●Improve their wellbeing and promote social equality
At CVPS we develop oracy skills in 4 key areas: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social & emotional.
●Physical is making yourself heard, using your voice and body as an instrument. ●Linguistic is knowing which words and phrases to use, and using them.
●Cognitive is the deliberate application of thought to what you are saying.
●Social and emotional is engaging with the people around you; knowing you have the right to speak.
‘Oracy is what the school does to support the development of children's capacity to use speech to express their thoughts and communicate with others, in education and in life.' Professor Robin Alexander. 'Talk is the most powerful tool of communication in the classroom and it's fundamentally central to the acts of teaching and learning.' Professor Frank Hardman.
Reading
Our reading curriculum and progression document is available here
Our reading lists are available here
We have carefully considered a range of reading skills that we want to explicitly teach our pupils to ensure all children know that reading is an open door to all other learning opportunities. They understand that reading frequently makes them a good reader, and being a good reader expands their world. Our children will embrace their own individual reading journey and will celebrate their reading milestones as they develop new strategies, learn new words, explore different genres, discover unknown authors, experience unfamiliar settings and unpick hidden meanings. By continually reflecting on their own reading journey, our children will not only be able to read, but most importantly, will want to read.
Our key areas of focus for reading in school are developing:
- Attitudes to reading
- Fluency and accuracy
- Word reading - decoding (through the RWI phonic programme)
- Reading stamina
- Comprehension - vocabulary
- Comprehension - retrieval
- Comprehension -inference and justifying evidence
- Comprehension - prediction
- Comprehension - summarising
- Comprehension - making connections and comparisons
- Understanding of author intent with language
- Understanding of author intent with structure and presentation
We have recently developed our school library and purchased over £6000 of new books to support our children to fall in love with reading.
Theory and research reading
‘To be literate is to gain a voice and to participate meaningfully and assertively in decisions that affect one’s life.’ (Y Kassam’s 1994 paper ‘Who benefits from illiteracy?’)
Reading for pleasure has been revealed as the most important indicator of the future success of a child (OECD, 2002), and improvements in literacy, at any point in life, can have a profound effect on an individual.
At CVPS we place a high priority on the teaching of reading. In addition to daily English lessons, children develop their skills in early reading through the use of the RWI programme from reception to year 2 (and above if needed).
We use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children. We also provide a wealth of enrichment opportunities, e.g. author visits, performances and learning expeditions. This ensures that children benefit from access to positive role models from the local and wider locality.
We place a large emphasis on the teaching of vocabulary. A strong correlation can be made between the number of words a child comes in contact with on a daily basis and the breadth of their vocabulary. Hart and Risley best demonstrated this in their ground-breaking study in the 1990s. Their research into the importance of socio-economic factors in this context concluded a child from a less advantaged background could have experienced 30 million fewer words than a more advantaged child on starting school (Hart, B. and Risley, T. 2003)
In light of this, CVPS plans for high quality interactions in lessons, including talking about the child’s focus of interest, varying vocabulary, and using words in different contexts. Also there is strong emphasis on Oracy skills throughout the curriculum (see Oracy documents)
Early reading - Read, Write, Inc (RWI)
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a complete phonics 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.
The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. However, at CVPS, we begin to expose children in Nursery to skills that will help them access the taught programme in Reception. We continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7, as we use a 'stage not age' approach.
RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
How will my child be taught to read?
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. 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.
The children will:
- Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below
- Learn to read words using Fred (the frog) talk and sound blending
- Read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge
- Work well with partners
- Develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions
Fred Talk
We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’ ’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily. At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.
Writing
Our writing curriculum and progression document is available here
We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We aim to encourage children to be successful and avid readers. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and use discussion to communicate and further their learning.
We also believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in spelling, punctuation and grammar, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in English skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.
Theory and Research- Writing
Staff at CVPS have developed a vocabulary rich teaching programme that ensures that cross curricular links are woven into the programmes of study. The writing plan ensures that children are explicitly taught complex vocabulary, are given opportunities for purposeful talk and given the tools to frame and structure their writing with time to re-draft based on feedback.
Our pedagogy focuses on a model text ‘What a good one looks like’ (WAGOLL) and children are supported to internalise the text, to identify transferable ideas and structures. Teachers and pupils then work together to re-model the text through shared and modelled writing opportunities and children use drama, child-led play and high-quality discussions to incorporate their own ideas into writing frame. These tasks improve writing ability by giving pupils an understanding of the structure and elements of written language.
Our writing programme adopts the ‘‘Self-Regulated Strategy Development’ teaching approach (SRSD). The effectiveness of the SRSD approach is supported by ‘strong evidence’ in a meta-analysis of research commissioned by the Department of Education in Washington. These features include the following: strategies and techniques to shape writing for different purposes; the gradual release of responsibility from teacher to pupil; the selection of writing for a variety of purposes and audiences; the use of exemplary texts; genre-specific techniques; and pupil self-evaluation and self-reinforcement.
