Badsey First SchoolEnglish
At Badsey First School, we don't see reading and writing as separate subjects, but instead we view English skills as a core componant of everything that we do here at school. We want our children to leave us with the skills to communicate effectively with others through spoken and written language and, through exposure to a range of literature, develop culturally, intellectually, socially, emotionally and spiritually.
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Reading
Parents often ask what they can do to support their child with their learning, and our first answer is always: read with them.
At Badsey, we say: 'Reading makes you brainy'.
The Big 5 of Reading
Teaching reading runs throughout a child’s entire school life. The Big 5 are evidence based components of reading which all need to be taught, practised and embedded for children to be successful, confident readers.
Phonics
Phonics is the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (individual sounds of spoken language) and graphemes (letters of written language).
Phonemic Awareness
This refers to the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds, or phonemes, in spoken words. Phonemic awareness is important because it improves children’s word reading and reading comprehension. It also helps them learn to spell.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary refers to the words we must know to communicate effectively. Oral vocabulary describes words we use in speaking or recognise in listening, while reading vocabulary refers to words we recognise or use in print.
Fluency
Fluency refers to the ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Fluent readers are able to focus their attention on comprehension (i.e., making connections between the ideas in a text and their background knowledge), while less fluent readers are focused on decoding individual words and have little attention left for comprehending the text.
Text Comprehension
Text comprehension is the goal of reading, and thus children must be able to move beyond reading individual words in order to understand the texts.
Phonics and Phonemic Awareness
Phonics is taught using the Essential Letters and Sounds sequence of teaching. This begins in EYFS and is continues across KS1. Some children may need more support with phonics and it is important to go back to phonics for those that need it, otherwise they will continue to struggle with reading due to these early gaps.
Phonics - ELS
“We aim for all children to read well, quickly”
What is phonics?
A method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning to associate letters or letter groups with the sounds they represent. There are 44 main sounds in the English Language. Each sound is represented by a grapheme (the written representation of a sound).
In the GLA we follow Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS). The key principles of ELS are based upon:
- The delivery of whole- class, high-quality first teaching with well-structured daily lesson plans.
- The use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents.
- The use of consistent resources that support effective teaching.
- Repetition and reinforcement of learning.
- Regular and manageable assessment to ensure that all children ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’.
- The ‘E’ model
All of our pupils in EYFS and Year 1 have daily ELS lessons. ELS teaching also continues in Year 2 and into Key Stage 2. If required, some pupils receive ELS interventions to support the ELS principle of “Keep up not catch up.” This ensures all our pupils have the best start to early reading.
We regularly host ELS parent sessions which provide you with the opportunity to learn about how we teach phonics to your child/children. These sessions also inform you about reading with your child at home and giving you the opportunity to learn some sounds yourself! If you were unable to attend our most recent session or are new to our school please speak to your child’s class teacher as we are always very happy to provide more information.
For further information on how you can support your child with their phonic learning, please follow the links provided.
You can learn how to say the sounds using the ELS videos below.
Writing
As a GLA, our vision is for everyone to know that they are writers. We strive to break down barriers so that all children can experience the joy of their ideas coming to life on the page.
Our GLA writing strategy encompasses the key principles from Pie Corbett's Talk4Writing, with a focus on oral imitation of language. Alongside this, a carefully planned text overview ensures that children have exposure to a range of literature and genres throughout their time at school. These texts are specifically chosen to:
- Provide the essential reference points for many writers
- Give children access to wider knowledge from differing viewpoints
- Explore literary devices
- Explore characterisation and character development over time
- Most important of all...Develop a love of reading and writing!
Spelling
Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) provides children with the phonetical knowledge required to recognise and write the many graphemes of the English language. The spelling strategy builds upon the need for oral rehearsal; children say the word, before breaking down into the single phonemes ready to spell. As children enter KS2, ELS strategies continue to be used, progressively building the knowledge of spelling patterns and the relationship between spelling and meaning. You can see an outline for the lesson structure that we follow in KS2 below:
The overviews for Year 2 - 5 were introduced in Autumn 2 and can be found below:
Y2 National Curriculum Spellings can be found here
Y3-4 National Curriculum Spellings can be found here
Y5-6 National Curriculum Spellings can be found here
Grammar
You can access the grammar overview here that we follow.