English
At Skinners’ Kent Primary School we understand the need for all pupils to develop their spoken language, reading, writing and understanding of grammar as an essential component of all subjects, and as a subject in its own right. A good understanding of these skills is a basis to fully accessing all other areas of the curriculum.
Reading
At Skinners’ Kent Primary School, we believe that reading is central to all learning. We seek to foster in our pupils a genuine love of literature and a desire to read for pleasure, educating them to be discriminating and critical readers.
Our aim is that pupils:
Learning takes place in a stimulating, Literacy-rich environment, where children have access to a wide range of quality texts. All classrooms have bright, stimulating and inviting book corners where children can choose from a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books. We use texts within our units of inquiry to engage children in their learning.
At Skinners’ Kent Primary School we use the ‘Letters and Sounds’ synthetic phonics programme as the primary method of teaching reading.
‘Phonics’ involves teaching children that letters, or groups of letters, make certain sounds. Children are taught to put together or ‘build up’ the sounds for unfamiliar written words by changing letters into sounds and blending the sounds together. Alongside phonics we teach a range of strategies to develop reading and understanding including looking at the illustrations, context-based clues and deciding whether a sentence makes sense.
Further reading opportunities are provided through whole class shared reading, daily guided reading sessions and independent reading times. In addition, we are proud to provide all children with frequent access to a well-stocked school library. We have a wide range of reading scheme books from a variety of sources and each pupil has their own Bug Club login where they can read a wide range of texts online, answer comprehension questions and play reading games.
Writing
Teaching writing is a major focus at Skinners’ Kent Primary School.
Pupils are encouraged to:
Handwriting
Aims are:
We value the support parents and carers give to their children by reading regularly with them at home and encouraging them to write. We recognise the positive contribution that this makes to a child’s progress, attainment and enjoyment.
Reading
At Skinners’ Kent Primary School, we believe that reading is central to all learning. We seek to foster in our pupils a genuine love of literature and a desire to read for pleasure, educating them to be discriminating and critical readers.
Our aim is that pupils:
- Gain enthusiasm and enjoyment from the written word and enrich their language and understanding
- Have opportunities to hear a wide variety of texts read aloud
- Have access to a wide range of reading materials in various formats
- Appreciate that books from all genres are produced by authors, illustrators and publishers, and develop opinions about the work of these people
- Are encouraged to use a range of reading strategies in an appropriate way
- Offer personal and critical response to what they read
- Are able to use their reading skills to improve their learning across the curriculum
- Perceive research as an enjoyable and purposeful activity
- Have opportunities to use the school and class libraries
- Develop reading as a lifelong habit
Learning takes place in a stimulating, Literacy-rich environment, where children have access to a wide range of quality texts. All classrooms have bright, stimulating and inviting book corners where children can choose from a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books. We use texts within our units of inquiry to engage children in their learning.
At Skinners’ Kent Primary School we use the ‘Letters and Sounds’ synthetic phonics programme as the primary method of teaching reading.
‘Phonics’ involves teaching children that letters, or groups of letters, make certain sounds. Children are taught to put together or ‘build up’ the sounds for unfamiliar written words by changing letters into sounds and blending the sounds together. Alongside phonics we teach a range of strategies to develop reading and understanding including looking at the illustrations, context-based clues and deciding whether a sentence makes sense.
Further reading opportunities are provided through whole class shared reading, daily guided reading sessions and independent reading times. In addition, we are proud to provide all children with frequent access to a well-stocked school library. We have a wide range of reading scheme books from a variety of sources and each pupil has their own Bug Club login where they can read a wide range of texts online, answer comprehension questions and play reading games.
Writing
Teaching writing is a major focus at Skinners’ Kent Primary School.
Pupils are encouraged to:
- Become independent writers
- Become familiar with a range of writing to suit audience and purpose
- Reflect on their own individuality and creativity
- Ensure that extended writing time is frequently and regularly available
- Provide access to a wide range of quality reading resources including non-fiction, stories, and poetry and play scripts in various formats
- Create frequent opportunities to share and publish writing
- Share their own favourite writing and texts with the children
- Allow opportunities for reading whole texts as well as extracts
- Expose pupils to a wide range of authors, poets and storytellers, planning opportunities for children to encounter good examples of writing and investigate an author’s craft
- Use demonstration as well as shared and supported composition on a regular basis
Handwriting
Aims are:
- To develop a legible, fluent and comfortable style
- To appreciate the aesthetic qualities of handwriting
- To gain pleasure from presentation
- To ensure that a good standard of handwriting is used and maintained in all areas of the curriculum
We value the support parents and carers give to their children by reading regularly with them at home and encouraging them to write. We recognise the positive contribution that this makes to a child’s progress, attainment and enjoyment.
| skills_map_for_reading.pdf |
