Literacy - reading, writing and phonics

LITERACY

English sits at the heart of our curriculum in EYFS and across the school. Through story, language and text children learn to express themselves, form and connect ideas and develop a rich vocabulary that they are adept at using independently. Through our teaching of reading and writing, children build up the skills they need to become able and confident readers and writers, along with the stamina to persevere.

READING

We want every child to develop a life-long love of reading and hope that throughout their time at Roger Ascham a combination of daily story time, guided reading sessions with an adult, phonics input and well-stocked reading areas will enable children to continue this journey.

Parental input is also vital in this journey. Sharing a book with your child makes a huge difference along with regular reading time where your child reads to you. This may begin with looking at the pictures together and talking about what they can see. Interest, new vocabulary and excitement about what is happening in the story are vital for reading to begin.

WRITING

Across the school children are taught writing using high quality texts that demonstrate a range of styles and evoke emotion giving children a real reason to write.  We use drama, role play and discussions to engage the children’s imagination before moving onto exploring vocabulary, sentence construction and creative writing.

The structural and technical knowledge is fostered alongside developing a love for writing which we hope every child has as a lifelong way of communicating and expressing themselves.

At the very earliest stage we want children to see the reason we write and know they have something to say.

PHONICS

Phonics is a complex but exciting system of sounds within the English language. It begins when babies start to respond to sounds around them continuing through a whole range of skills such as hearing the beginning of sounds (phonemes) to blending letter sounds together to manipulating and deleting letter sounds to make words.