Reading at Hambleton
As a school, reading and books are at the heart of everything we do.
Phonics:
Phonics taught daily in EYFS and KS1 following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme. In these lessons, children are taught to say, read and write sounds in every lesson. All staff ensure we use the same language across school to help children remember their phonics and thrive in the lessons and using phonics to read and write in other lessons.
Here is a link to the website if you would like to take a look:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/about-us/
Explicit reading lessons:
In our reading lessons, children take part in a reading carousel to allow them to experience different aspects of reading everyday which continues to help them progress and promotes their love of reading. Children read daily and are either practicing their fluency, are in a guided session with a teacher (learning key knowledge and skills), are completing independent tasks, or are reading a book of their choice. In our lessons we use ‘Bug Club’ Online Reading World to support and enhance their learning and enjoyment of reading and allows children access to a large range of books at the appropriate level.
Assessment:
Teachers assess reading daily, and create intervention groups for those swho might be struggling to accelerate their progress. As well as this, as a school we use GL Assessments (the NGRT) assessment. This is an online assessment which gives detailed data to staff which they can use to enhance and inform their teaching and planning.
Reading for pleasure:
In school, we have a lovely library filled with books. Each class has a library slot where children can go into the library and enjoy looking at books and choosing a book they would like to take home. We also have access to the E Library. This is an online library with many books for the children to read or audio books for them to listen to. This promotes reading for pleasure as the children love sharing books they have read and having such an accessible range of texts to meet the interests of all.
Reading at home:
Children take home three reading books a week: A book at the appropriate phonics level for fluency, a book in their coloured book band for breadth and a library book of their choice for pleasure. These books are changed once a week, as we expect children to be reading their books more than once to improve fluency. We expect pupils to be reading at home every day Short, enjoyable sessions encourage children to read for pleasure, whilst regular additional practice really does boost their progress!
We aim to provide an environment that encourages children to develop fully their ability to use language, both spoken and written. The skills developed in English are necessary for all areas of the curriculum and are used throughout the school week. However, specific English teaching takes place during the daily English lesson.
Speaking & Listening
Our children are given opportunities to communicate their ideas in a variety of situations. These may take the form of a discussion with a partner, a group, or class. Children are taught from an early age the value of listening to others and taking the opinions of others on board. We also have a range of interventions to help support those that might find speaking and listening difficult, for example Colourful Semantics. As a school, we use Widgit symbols to support the learning of our pupils. This is a programme that turns words into symbols. We use this consistently to help children identify words when reading, writing or speaking.
Here is a link to Widgit if you would like to take a look:
https://widgitonline.com/en/home
Writing
Writing is a vital communication tool, which is incorporated into almost every part of our school curriculum. We aim to make writing meaningful and engaging while teaching children to write for a wide range of purposes. Children have the opportunity to develop their factual and creative writing and their ability to write poetry throughout KS1 and KS2. This starts in Reception with word and sentence level work linked to the children’s topics, the jungle for example, and develops throughout school until Year 6 where the children write diaries, formal letters, non-chronological reports and more based on their topics. Pupils are encouraged to work with increasing independence; dictionary and thesaurus skills are taught in order to aid this process.
As a school, we use Talk for Writing to help us create amazing pieces of writing throughout school. This is a framework that helps boost the creativity of children’s writing at all stages.
Here is the website if you would like to find our more:
SPaG is incorporated into the English curriculum throughout school from Reception to Year 6. Children are taught year related objectives taken from our curriculum that ensures continuity and coverage across school. As a school, we understand the need to make SPaG meaningful for our children and we therefore take every opportunity to apply SPaG objectives to writing through our Talk for Writing process.
Handwriting
Handwriting is taught as a skill with an emphasis placed upon the careful presentation of work. Handwriting lessons are explicitly taught every week.
Spelling
Spelling is taught in EYFS through our phonics scheme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds. From Year 1-6 spelling is taught through Spelling Shed. These spellings and rules are taught all week in a range of ways and are then set as homework on Friday. A spelling test is then completed the following Friday morning.