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Beaconside C of E Primary School & Acorn Nursery

Learning to live, Learning to shine.

Beaconside C of E Primary School & Acorn Nursery

“Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works” (Matthew 5:16)

How we teach English at Beaconside

Phonics and Early Reading at Beaconside

Phonics:

We teach pupils to read using the Ruth Miskin 'Read Write Inc' programme. The programme teaches children to read fluently and teaches them the skills they need to comprehend what they are reading in small, planned steps. 

  • Children will learn the alphabetic code, initially learning one way of reading each of the 40+ sounds.
  • Blending will then be taught to help the children use these sounds to read words.
  • Further into the programme, children will learn alternative graphemes for the sounds they have learnt.
  • Reading books are closely matched to the phonic level of the child. Repetition of the sounds and words they are using in lessons along with additional practise reading books containing these at home, assists fluency for the child. 
  • Story books will be used in Phonics lessons to develop comprehension alongside decoding. 

Read Write Inc supporting documents for parents

Name
 Parent FAQs.docxDownload
 Parent Support Fred Talk.docxDownload
 Parent Support Set 1 Sounds.docxDownload
 Parent Support Set 2 and 3 sounds.docxDownload
 Parent Support Y1 Phonics Screening check.docxDownload
 RWI_new_curriculum_grid.pdfDownload
 Tips for reading with your child.pdfDownload
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Reading at Beaconside 

Whole Class  Reading:

Reading from year 2 to year 6 is taught using a whole class approach. Teachers use a combination of key high quality texts from our school reading spine and a selection of extracts. These include fiction, non fiction, poetry and song lyrics. Children will be taught progressive reading skills which enable them to have full comprehension of a text. 

 

Independent Reading:

All children will be listened to by adults in school. They will have their reading recorded by the adult in a reading folder consistent to each class. Reception and year 1 children will be given books linking to the Phonics set they are working on from the Read Write Inc Phonics scheme. This is an opportunity for children to practise blending of sounds they have been learning and also familiar sounds from previous learning. These books are carefully matched and children will be assessed every half term to ensure book levels are accurate in terms of both decoding and comprehension. 

From year 2 onwards, children will be assessed for accuracy using the school’s chosen running record (Assertive Mentoring). This should happen once every half term to ensure that children are on the correct book banding. Books for reading at home are matched to instructional level (90-95% accuracy). When children have completed the scheme book bandings they become ‘free readers’. They can then select their own reading book either from the library, the class reading area or from home. Book banding is determined according to fluency and comprehension of the text. 

Frequent readers: These children will be identified by English leaders and communicated to class teachers. These children will be listened to reading their reading book on a daily basis.

Writing at Beaconside 

Writing

At Beaconside we put a strong emphasis on the teaching of basic writing skills and provide many opportunities to write for varied purposes across the curriculum. We believe that writing should be meaningful and related to real-life contexts, in order to motivate and engage our pupils whilst giving children opportunities to write creatively based on high quality texts. 

Children will understand from an early age that their writing will be read by other people, and so their writing should be accurate, legible and set out appropriately.

All classrooms should have written work produced by the children on display. Any work displayed should celebrate time and effort put in by children, high levels of skill or good presentation. Displays should also highlight good examples of adult handwriting which is joined.

Staff use the Talk 4 Writing approach to teach fiction text types to children. From an early age, children internalise key texts and orally rehearse these to ensure they are aware of story structures. They then innovate these stories to help them write their own. High quality 'WAGOLLS' (What A Good One Looks Like) are used to demonstrate different genres of writing to children. These are written on themes that match their current learning theme or elements of the Beacon subjects. Extracts from the reading curriculum support the writing genres by exposing children to examples before their writing unit begins. 

Grammar and punctuation

Grammar and punctuation are taught through the writing process. Taught grammar is matched to writing genres to ensure it is purposeful and used appropriately. Children practise this discretely and apply to their writing where necessary. As children progress through the school, they will identify which grammatical techniques are appropriate to specific text types and use these where appropriate. 

Spelling

Spelling is taught from year 2 to year 6 once the children have completed the Read Write Inc Phonics programme. Short practise sessions are included on the weekly timetable where staff explicitly teach spelling rules and strategies that help children to spell unknown words. Spelling homework, taken from Purple Mash, is sent home weekly for children to complete in  preparation for weekly spelling tests. These spellings are a combination of the  National Curriculum rules for their year group and the statutory word lists for their phase.