English
Our carefully designed English curriculum integrates the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Lessons are taught to inspire children to read and write. Pupils are given the opportunity to access, share, read and develop a love for quality books. They develop a passion for writing through guided, independent and 'Write What You Like' opportunities. They explore the world of literature through a range of different genres. We have high expectations for the children's development and acquisition of language. Lessons across the curriculum, immerse the children in rich and challenging vocabulary.
Children's Laureate, Cressida Cowell
Waterstones Children's Laureate Cressida Cowell is full of exciting plans and wants EVERY child to read for fun and get something out of books. Here, she shares her Children's Laureate Charter with you all...
PHONICS
Phonics is proven to be the most effective method of teaching children to learn to read as it simplifies the English language down into just 44 sounds. Children 'decode' words by breaking them down into the sounds.
At Willesborough, we teach our children using a rigorous synthetic phonics programme called Floppy’s Phonics. Floppy's Phonics is a beautifully crafted programme that is rigorous, easy-to-use and engages children from the outset, enabling them to learn to read quickly. It teaches the letter/sound correspondences of the English alphabetic code explicitly and comprehensively for reading and spelling. It links up to our core reading scheme, The Oxford Reading Tree, including the characters of Floppy, Biff, Chip and Kipper, who the children get to know well. As well as the systematic teaching of phonics, the programme provides an engaging platform for vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension.
Alongside our programme, we use high quality resources for effective and consistent phonics teaching. Our children engage in fun, multisensory phonics lessons 5 days a week, for 30mins throughout EYFS, Year One and Year Two.
READING
Intent:
- Every child will be a reader, regardless of their background, needs or abilities.
- Ensure that the school’s phonics programme matches or exceeds the expectations of the English National Curriculum and early learning goals.
- Have clear expectations of pupils’ phonics progress term by term, from Reception to Year Two, and frequently adapt our school’s phonics planning to align with these expectations.
- Provide children with a sequence of reading books that shows a cumulative progression in phonics knowledge. Ensuring that our scheme is matched closely to our school's phonics programme and suits the needs of each individual child.
Implementation:
Our school’s core scheme is Oxford Reading Tree. The children read the six core books from each stage, enabling them to embed their phonics knowledge whilst developing their tricky word recognition. After this, the children progress to reading a wider range of texts within their reading stage to encourage breadth and depth. Throughout each stage, children will encounter additional books which provides them with exposure to both fiction and non-fiction texts.
At Willesborough Infant School, we thrive on ensuring children develop a love and passion for reading. Throughout the school week, children are provided with the opportunity to enjoy school book corners and libraries. Throughout our curriculum, children encounter a diverse range of literature such as sharing high quality non-fiction texts, fiction texts, kindle stories, iPads, big books and story sacks.
As part of children’s reading development, it is important that children can comprehend what they have read. At Willesborough Infant School we teach comprehension skills through ICLUE. ICLUE is a set of comprehension based reading symbols.
ICLUE stands for:
I - Inference and deduction
C - Choices
L - Locating and retrieving
U - Understanding
E - Empathy
ICLUE is embedded in all areas of our curriculum.
In order to ensure that our teaching of reading is as effective as possible we will:
- Ensure that a wide variety of high quality factual, fictional, poetry and reference material is provided across all areas of the curriculum.
- Deliver high quality weekly guided reading sessions to support children with their reading development and their ability to comprehend what they have read.
- Teach a systematic synthetic phonics programme "Floppy Phonics"
Click here to view our Core Reading Texts
WRITING
We foster a love of writing from the earliest stages of learning. Children are taught to write in shared, guided and independent contexts across their daily English lessons and many other areas of the curriculum. Opportunities for writing are incorporated into the children's learning environments and we aim to inspire them to write in their own time as well as in directed time. The application of writing for a range of purposes is incorporated into other areas of children's learning through uniquely planned topics. We are very proud of our 'Write What You Like!' strategy which was devised and developed by WIS and has now been cascaded to many other schools.
We celebrate English by providing the children with regular enrichment opportunities such as: storytelling days, author visits, illustrator visits, drama workshops and enriching, real life experiences. Every year we celebrate 'Book Week'; the children enjoy a range of activities during this week including visits from well known authors and illustrators.
Click here to view our EYFS English Overview
Click here to view our Year 1 English Overview
Click here to view our Year 2 English Overview
Home Learning
During our school closure, our teachers pre-recorded lessons for our families to access at home. Here are a few examples of our English lessons:
Year 1
Year 2
In Reception we teach the children to print the letters of the alphabet, ensuring that they begin and end in the correct place. When children are ready to progress on to writing cursively they use the supported cursive document. We refer to the green dots and arrows to support the children in correctly forming the letters. Please support your children with this at home.
Handwriting Illustration to Follow
Spelling is an integral part of our curriculum. This word mat supports the children in linking their phonics knowledge to their writing and allows them to phonetically spell words that are unfamiliar to them.
You can see find a copy of this word mat below.
We encourage our children to learn how to spell tricky words correctly, using the mats below to support them. The tricky words can't be sounded out using phonics, the children have to learn how to spell them by using their alphabet names and by creating photographic pictures of these words in their heads. We give the children opportunities to practise these words by playing a range of spelling games such as, hangman, creating the words in play-dough and finding them in word searches. Our children love to practise these spellings by using rainbow writing. You can have fun creating games to support your children in developing their spelling knowledge at home too!
Tricky Word Tree to Follow
Reading News .......
Look at our Book Swap Shed!
It's full of free books for children. You can swap, drop or just take books from the shed, which can be found in the school reception area. Enjoy!
BIG Investment
We have just purchased £5000 worth of new reading books! Our children love them. Here's what they say about them.
"I really like the new information books. The pictures are big and they tell me lots of new things"
"I like reading the stories where my mum reads a bit too"
"I like reading the new books because Biff and Chip go on loads of adventures. Floppy makes me laugh"
