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 reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children.

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.

We have a team of volunteers across school, both parents and parishioners, who support us with reading. As well as our kind volunteers, teachers regularly listen to children read on a 1:1 basis and within groups and the whole class in our Guided Reading sessions as part of Little Wandle in Reception and Year One.

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!

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.

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/