English

English at Leigh Primary school

At Leigh Primary School, we follow the national curriculum. The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Phonics - Read Write Inc (RWInc)

At Leigh, we have followed the Read Write Inc programme to teach early reading and writing since January 2019.

Aims of RWInc

• To learn to read and write all 44 graphemes in the English language. 

• To learn that blending and segmenting words are reversible processes.

• To ensure that the children are taught high frequency words that do not conform to regular phonic patterns.

• To teach pupils aural discrimination, phonemic awareness and rhyme awareness in order to encourage good spelling.

• To encourage repetition and consolidation, so that spelling becomes automatic.

• To help the children to segment words into their constituent phonemes in order to spell words.

• To enable children to learn phonic knowledge and skills with the expectation that they will become fluent readers, having secured word building and recognition skills

• To encourage pupils to apply their phonic skills in all curriculum areas.

• To provide children with the tools and techniques needed to pass the year 1 phonics screening test.

Phase 1 Letters and Sounds are taught within the Nursery at the start of the year, as it tunes children into sounds and helps each child to access the RWInc Programme. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letters-and-sounds) Our school aim is that the phonics programmes are completed by the end of Year 2. If any children need extra support with phonics, this is provided through interventions within Key Stage Two.

Reading skills (content domains)