Literacy
Literacy at Red Oak Primary
Intent
Teaching our children to speak, read and write accurately, fluently and confidently is the most important thing we will do.
A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others, and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually.
Ofsted’s greatest focus, as well as ours here at school, is upon the teaching of reading: Read Write Inc. is the Phonics and intervention programme that we use across the school to maximise reading and writing results.
Here at Red Oak we recognise that children who read a lot are successful at school. Reading enriches their vocabulary, their grammar, their writing and their spelling.
As children learn to read, the more they want to read and the more they understand; the less they struggle with spelling, the more capacity they have for writing what they want to say.
Importantly, if they read and write fluently, they can draw ideas together – a key skill for effective learning at any age. Teaching children to read – and keeping them reading – are the two things that will make the biggest difference to their future.
The five key principles of all the Read Write Inc. programme are:
Participation, Praise, Pace, Purpose and Passion
Broken down this means that children:
- actively participate in each lesson through partner work
- that praise is paramount for success
- the pace of the lessons move the children on as quickly as possible
- each activity within a lesson has a very clear purpose
- the teachers at Red Oak are passionate about teaching reading and writing.
How we organise Literacy at Red Oak (Implementation)
All children in Reception and Year 1 are in RWI Phonics, grouped according to their ability. Some children in Year 2-4 continue with RWI phonics if they still need it. Children in Year 5 & 6 still needing support access the Fresh Start Programme. All children from Year 2- Year 6 not in RWI or Fresh Start are in class for Literacy.
RWI Phonics
Children in Nursery are taught Set 1 sounds and they practice these throughout their sessions, they also learn rhymes and songs that help with learning sounds.
All children in Reception and Year1 are grouped for Phonics according to their ability. They are assessed every 6-8 weeks. Children in Year 2 -4 who are not yet confident in their reading and sound knowledge are also grouped for Phonics according to their ability. We aim to keep the groups as small as possible so that the children can receive the highest level of support possible.
The chart below shows how children move through the Phonics programme. Ideally children should be finishing the Grey books by the end of summer in Year 1, ready to start Literacy in class in Year 2.
|
New Speed Sounds to learn |
Speed Sounds to review |
Ditties, Storybooks and Get Writing! Books |
|
Set 1 and blending |
|
|
|
|
Set 1 and blending |
Ditties |
|
Set 2 |
Set 1 and blending |
Green and Purple Storybooks and Get Writing! books |
|
Teach letter names |
Set 1 and 2 |
Pink Storybooks and Get Writing! books |
|
Teach Set 3 reading only |
Set 1 and 2 |
Orange Storybooks and Get Writing! books |
|
Teach Set 3 reading and spelling |
Set 1 and 2 |
Yellow, Blue and Grey Storybooks and Get Writing! books |
What to expect in RWI Phonics
Throughout the week the children participate in variety of enriching activities. Each day they practice their speed sounds, and read green and red words, as well as speedy words, they read the story book associated with their writing activity and have to answer questions about the story. There are regular vocabulary checks through the week to ensure that the children understand the new and rich vocabulary they are expected to use. They also practise reading with fluency and expression. During the writing part of RWI Phonics children regularly carry out a spelling check, edit work for spelling and punctuation, hold sentences (dictation), and build sentences. Towards the end of the week children write a composition based on picture prompts. The children’s reading books are directly linked to the sounds they know and can blend. Phonics is taught 5 days a week in order to fully prepare the children to become life long readers. Our phonics screening check scores are consistently, year on year significantly higher than the national average.
Red Oak Literacy
Our Literacy programme runs from Year 2- Year 6. There are 6 units of work per year, broken down into roughly two per term. Each unit starts with a fiction writing focus and then a non-fiction writing focus.
What to expect in Literacy
From September 2024 Years 2-5 use "The Write Stuff" by Jane Considine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing. "The Write Stuff" approach follows a method called "Sentence Stacking" which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and are organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. Each year group has 6 units across the year, which covers fiction, non- fiction and poetry. These have been chosen by the English team to ensure coverage, interest and engagement.
An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to three learning chunks. Each learning chunk has three sections:
- Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.
- Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
- Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.
Children are challenged to ‘Deepen the Moment’ which requires them to independently draw upon previously learnt skills and apply them to their writing. Pupils are routinely monitoring their sentences during this structured approach to writing and reflect on the overall shape of the text, whether the focus is poetry, non-fiction or fiction as they develop writing skills and apply these independently.
"The Write Stuff" uses three essential components to support children in becoming great writers.
The three zones of writing :-
- IDEAS - The FANTASTICs uses a child friendly acronym to represent the nine idea lenses through which children can craft their ideas.
- TOOLS - The GRAMMARISTICS. The grammar rules of our language system and an accessible way to target weaknesses in pupils grammatical and linguistic structures.
- TECHNIQUES - The BOOMTASTICs which helps children capture ten ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual.
Year 6 follow a bespoke Red Oak writing curriculum that draws on their prior learning and again they have 6 units per year covering fiction, non- fiction and poetry. They base their writing around high quality reading books that they read alongside the writing aspect of their curriculum. These reading books form the basis for their guided reading and reading comprehension.
Reception children follow the Talk Through Stories from RWI, this is a programme that builds in children a love of stories and reading, whilst also building up their vocabulary through explicit vocabulary teaching.
Year 2 follow the RWI Comprehension programme for their reading curriculum which builds on the skills the pupils developed in EYFS and Year 1 when in RWI phonics.
Years 3-5 have reading texts chosen by the English team which both challenge the pupils, engage them and cover a wide range of classics, modern texts, authors, and offer a diverse view to the world and encourage a windows and mirrors approach to reading. Throughout the reading lessons children experience reading aloud, being read to, guided reading, and reading comprehension. Reading for pleasure is celebrated in our school through our three libraries, our class libraries and our reading rewards systems. All children can take home a reading for pleasure book from our libraries each week.
Fresh Start
Fresh Start is a RWI programme specifically designed for UKS2 children who have struggled to pick up reading and writing earlier in their schooling. It follows exactly the same principles and activities as RWI Phonics but has age appropriate texts and writing opportunities designed to engage the older children. At Red Oak we run Fresh Start for any UKS2 children not in a Literacy class. Our groups are kept very small, and in some cases some children are taught on a 1-1 basis.
One to One Tutoring
We use the RWI One to One Tutoring system and any child that is struggling in their Phonics group, or not on track for their age receive one to one tutoring every day. It is based on sound knowledge, being able to blend, and being able to read words at speed.
Spelling and Grammar
We use the RWI Spelling programme daily across the school from Year 2- Year 6. Each week the children have a different spelling pattern to learn. Throughout the week the children learn to identify the different sounds in a word using the dots and dashes technique, they learn to use the words in context, they practise dictation using that week’s focus words and above all they practise, practise, practise!
Grammar is introduced in RWI phonics and the children learn the early grammar they need to know in these sessions. Class teachers also teach discrete grammar lessons to their class in Year 1. From Year 2-5 grammar is taught through The Write Stuff, as well as weekly extra grammar lessons. Year 6 teachers plan their grammar teaching from analysis of PIXl papers to ensure that all children have the grammar skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the next stage of their learning journey.
Impact
Assessment criteria has been developed in line with the National Curriculum requirements, and enables us to assess children as they move through each stage of their learning journey. We regularly attend moderation sessions across the Active Learning Trust for EYFS, Year 2, Year 4 and Year 6 to discuss standards wider than just our school community. In addition to the moderation meetings, we also meet as a hub and share work between schools, as well as participate in shared writing workshops at various points in the year.
In our school, we carry out regular and consistent learning walks and book monitoring to measure the impact and assess the implementation of our curriculum. We also subscribe to Pixl to compare our Reading and GPS results within a national context every half term in Year 6, and termly in the rest of KS2. We allow our children the opportunity to experience English through drama by attending theatre productions locally, working with local theatre projects, creating opportunities for enhancing vocabulary through the Arts, hosting regular theatre visits in school, and having regular story-telling visitors. We run reading cafes for parents to come in and learn the power and value of reading and to experience reading with their child.
We achieve a GLD (Good Level of Development) in EYFS in line with national standards, above the national standard in the Phonics Screening in Year 1, KS1 National Tests and KS2 National Tests. This ensures that every child leaves Red Oak as an able reader, writer, listener and speaker, with the confidence to take forward their learning to the next stage.