Intent
At Courtney Primary School the love of reading drives every aspect of our curriculum with reading being ‘what we breath in and writing what we breath out’. That love of reading starts early with the teaching of Phonics through Unlocking letters and Sounds. With books as the spine to our English curriculum, children are exposed to a range of authors, illustrators, genres and text types. With representation, ideas and quality being the driver for our text types.
At Courtney we teach reading, spellings and writing through a book-based approach following the national curriculum. The books we choose help children to grow ideas and expand their minds. We only choose significant and important children’s literature. Reading is a life skill that we expect every child, who leaves Courtney Primary School, to have. With high quality physical texts spanning fiction, non-fiction and poetry, classic and modern, we know our children are receiving a varied diet of literature that provides all with the opportunity to be transported to a different place and time. We see English as a tool for children to express their voice having created a varied bank of experiences of literature.
Implementation
At Courtney we teach early reading through the use of Unlocking Letters and Sounds.
The progression largely follows the progression contained in Letters and Sounds 2007, with some modifications, including refinements and clarifications of learning elements omitted from Letters and Sounds, and updated guidance, including requirements from the National Curriculum. The progression is structured broadly to follow Phases 1 to 5 of Letters and Sounds, but some phases are subdivided into smaller sections, offering structured opportunities for revision (‘Mastery’) and for spelling development. The detailed progression for Unlocking Letters and Sounds shows the GPCs and CEW that are taught on a week-by-week basis. A separate chart is also available showing how the Ransom Reading Stars programme of reading books matches the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression. At least two new fully-decodable reading books are available to read every week, for all Phases.
Once children have successfully completed learning phonics, this knowledge is transferred to a book-based approach with children building fluency in reading through whole class reading such as echo reading and chorus reading. Children are exposed to a range of vocabulary, experience verbal reasoning as a class and theory of mind as part of their reading lessons. Phonics teaching continues and is interwoven as part of building fluency in reading with children reading for meaning.
In reading, spelling and writing we teach through a text. It starts with a thematic link which is made through themes and conventions within significant literature. A discovery point is the next focus with dramatic conventions to support immersion and a creative hook with the book to create resonance. Next is literary language which is explicitly taught and applied in writing. Reading comprehension is explicitly embedded through prediction and inference. Grammar skills are embedded in writing and taught in context to be applied purposefully. Explicit spelling skills are explored and linked to vocabulary acquisition. The purpose and audience for writing are carefully considered with distinct shorter and longer writing opportunities rather than being genre-led.
Children from reception to Y6 are taught through a text in writing with children completing multiple books during an academic. The text is used to support the children in understanding characters, settings, text types and author’s and illustrator’s intentions. Children then creatively innovate stories and texts through their own writing. The low threshold, high ceiling allows all children the opportunity to write freely whilst being supported through the text.
Our pedagogy is woven throughout the teaching of English to ensure cognitive load is reduced and the focus is solely on new learning in context.
