English, Reading and Phonics

 At Dean Gibson, our children are immersed in English in all areas of the curriculum. We have high aspirations for all of our children in English and aim for our children to become avid readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their skills to all areas of the curriculum. We celebrate their achievements and diversity and support and prepare them for the next steps in their learning. Teachers strive for children to be curious, independent, resilient English learners who are proud of the work that they produce. We aim to use the outdoors to support our English learning as much as possible, whether this be learning in the outdoors or taking inspiration from the outdoors.

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At Dean Gibson Catholic Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Dean Gibson school, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared readingandwriting,bothinsideandoutsideofthephonicslessonandacrossthecurriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we

READING

We encourage children to be confident readers who select high quality texts for purpose and for enjoyment. Teachers expose children to a diverse range of texts and authors. We want them to use their reading skills as an integral part of their learning across the curriculum as well as read for pleasure, displaying curiosity about what they are reading and what happens next. We want to foster a love of books and texts.

Teachers read regularly to children in order to model good practice in reading. We encourage all children to read out loud both in school and at home in order to continue to develop fluency, confidence, comprehension and a love of reading. All children bring home suitable home reading books to continue to build upon their skills.

Little Wandle materials for parents ……… Click on this link to take you to the Little Wandle webpage.

All classes also have the opportunity to visit and borrow books from our school Library, enthusiastically ran by our Year 6 Librarians to enjoy and simply read for pleasure. They choose from a diverse range of texts to spark their curiosity.

Recommended Reads….

Click the links below to discover some fantastic books to share at home and set yourself a challenge:
how many of the recommended books can you read?
Recommended Reads - Reception Recommended Reads - Year 1 Recommended Reads - Year 2
Recommended Reads - Year 3 Recommended Reads - Year 4 Recommended Read - Year 5 Recommended Reads - Year 6

Perhaps you could join our local Library for free to see if you can find any of the books.

This reading list has come from https://peters.co.uk/primary , there are many more suggested books on there too!

International Book Giving Day

14th February 2023

International Book Giving Day takes place on 14th February each year and aims to get books into the hands of as many children as possible.

International Book Giving Day is an initiative aimed at increasing children’s access to and enthusiasm for books. Its focus is on encouraging people worldwide to give a book to a child. They invite individuals to gift a book to a friend or family member, leave a book in a waiting room for children to read or donate a gently used book to a local library or hospital, to a home or an organisation that distributes used books to children in need internationally.

In school, we took part by gifting books to one another. We wrapped up pre-loved, age-appropriate books from home that we had finished with and gifted them to another child in each class. The children loved both giving and receiving the gift of a book.

Wonderful Places to Read
competition 2023

As part of our whole school World Book Day Fun, we ran a ‘Wonderful Places to Read Competition where we asked our children to take a snap of themselves reading in an exciting, interesting or different place. There were some truly wonderful photographs and Mrs Tansey enjoyed looking at them all whilst having the tricky job of choosing our winners. Well done to all who entered.

World Book Day Fun!

We had a brilliant day celebrating World Book Day 2023 across school, each class completed book themed activities in the morning before we got together and shared stories with children from different classes in the afternoon. A big ‘thank you’ to our people at home for their support in helping us dress up!

Writing

Teachers use high quality and diverse texts covering a range of genres as a foundation for writing. These texts are often linked to wider areas of the curriculum and events in the yearly calendar. We draw upon current and topical news and matters which spark curiosity and enthusiasm within our children. We encourage children as writers, teaching them how to confidently and effectively write for a range of different purposes and audiences. Across school, we support writing in a variety of manners whilst encouraging independence through the use of our success criteria and aim for children to develop and apply their spelling, punctuation and grammar skills through discreet teaching and embedded lessons. Teachers encourage and support our children in gaining the skills to independently re-read, revise, edit and improve their writing as part of the writing process. We celebrate children’s writing and their progress as individuals through our special writing displays as well as support and encourage their learning through our English Working Walls.

Spelling Progression of Skills Year 2 Spelling Progression of Skills Year 3 Spelling Progression of Skills Year 4 Spelling Progression of Skills Year 5

Spelling Progression of Skills Year 6

Regular opportunity is provided for children to develop speaking and listening skills whether this be through drama and role play, debate, discussion or the sharing of work. We positively encourage children to listen to others’ thoughts and ideas with intent and empathy, then share their own with sureness and passion. The vital skills equip children for all aspects of school life and the wider world.

Phonics

Phonics is taught in KS1, with a focus in Reception and Year 1. Phonics helps children hear, identify and use different sounds in order to become readers and writers. At Dean Gibson we have recently adopted the ‘Little Wandle – Letters and Sounds Revised’ scheme of work. This scheme ensures high quality, consistent teaching of phonics and early reading for every child. As well as the teaching of the sounds that letters and groups of letters make, the Little Wandle scheme also enables us to use a range of phonetically decodable books, matched to these sounds. These will be shared in group reading sessions in school.

A big thank you to those parents who attended our Little Wandle parent information session. Please find the information which was shared below to support your child/ren with their phonics learning and reading at home below.

Please visit the parents section of the Little Wandle website for videos and further information:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/