Howick Church of England Primary School

English at Howick 

Intent 

At Howick we recognise the fundamental importance of reading and the impact this will have on our children’s future academic achievement, wellbeing and success in life.  

Children do not just become good readers and it is our intention to ensure that we carefully teach and provide them with regular practice from the moment they join us.  By doing this we want to ensure that our children become fluent and engaged readers.  

Reading is our priority and it is our intention to make sure that every child has the foundations to become a fluent, enthusiastic, engaged and lifelong reader.  

From reading comes writing.  At Howick we ensure that our early focus on reading and language will have an impact on writing and this is a crucial part of our curriculum. By the end of Year Six we intend our children to have developed a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word. We also intend to create writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing, and enable pupils to be able to confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. At Howick, we set high expectations for all our children to take pride in their work and have a fluent, cursive handwriting style alongside allowing their imaginations to flourish.  

Implementation 

Phonics

At Howick, we believe that reading is the key to success and underpins children's access to the curriculum; it clearly impacts on their achievement. To be able to read, children need to be taught an efficient strategy to decode words. That strategy is phonics. Phonic decoding skills must be practised until children become automatic and fluent reading is established.  

At our school, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised scheme. This is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP).  We prioritise the teaching of phonics and we teach phonics daily in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. We do this because we understand that it is vitally important that our children review and revisit Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into their long term memory. Our consistent approach to phonics ensures that our children are given the best possible foundation for reading, writing and language skills. 

Children need to learn to read as quickly and reasonably as possible, so that they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. At Howick our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable; children who are not keeping up with their peers are given additional practice immediately through keep-up sessions.

We use a range of multi-sensory resources to support phonics learning. On-going assessment of children's progress takes place and the books children read in school and take home to read are fully decodable and matched to children's secure phonics knowledge. As well as fully decodable books, children take home a non-decodable book for sharing that can be either read to or with them. These books play an essential role in developing a love of reading; an important distinction is that these books are being shared with the children, but they are using fully phonically decodable books to practise their independent reading.

Key 2 Stage 2 Guided reading

As our children move into Key Stage 2 they begin to be involved in whole class guided reading sessions.  High quality texts are chosen carefully with each child having their own copy which is taken home and shared as part of home learning.

Language and story 

In addition to the mechanics of reading, we want our children to have a rich language and believe that this is done by immersing them in a story rich environment where there is time to talk, discuss and develop a better understanding of vocabulary.  We are passionate about books, seeing how powerful they are as they provide our children with opportunities to imagine, explore and learn.  As teachers, it is our job to ignite this passion for reading by promoting books and openly sharing our love of books.  In order to ensure optimum impact, we choose books carefully considering the response they will get from our children be it curiosity, anger, excitement, laughter, empathy, the narrative, the vocabulary, the illustrations, the way that they will help our children to make links with who they are and also help them to the lives of people whose experiences and perspectives may be different from their own. 

We talk about books with the children, knowing that this will help our children to have an increased understanding which will directly impact on comprehension skills and writing.

Each class has a novel which is read with them each day. Teachers ensure that the children give them their undivided attention during this time and it has become a well-loved part of the day. 

There is also an inviting reading area with carefully chosen books allowing our children to escape from the classroom environment into whichever book they are reading. 

We have also established Book Clubs allowing our children to read, discuss and review books as part of a Lancashire run initiative.  

Reading in school and at home 

At Howick we understand the importance of children reading at home.  Each week the children in EYFS and KS1 are sent home with phonics sounds and games which will help them to practice the skills learnt in class. Children in KS2 have their guided reading book with set home learning alongside another text.  

We promote the value of reading and storytelling with our parents and send home directed comments to promote discussion and further extension of vocabulary as part of the home reading routine.   

Listening 

We recognise the importance of teaching our children what a good listener looks like and the importance of listening.  We do this through modelling, use of talk partners and praise. 

Writing 

Before children can write independently, they need to be able to say (aloud or just to themselves) what they want to write.  

By ensuring our children have a language rich environment from the moment they start school we aim to ensure that they will have a wide range of words and ideas to draw upon when they are able to write. All the adults in school play a vital role in the development of this language and we ensure that they; 

• Use thinking out loud to model new language for our children 
• Listen to what our children say, praising and validating their use of vocabulary, responding to it and rephrasing/extending 
• Asking a range of closed and open questions. 
• Answering our children’s questions 
• Providing explanations and models of accurate grammar. 
• Thinking of opportunities to expand and develop vocabulary – visits, visitors, cross curricular links etc.  

All of the above will help our children to articulate ideas in well-formed sentences, skills which will be transferred to writing.   

We recognise that expecting children to write at length early on results in cognitive overload and might damage their motivation to write, both at this stage and later.  For this reasons our EYFS staff support our children to compose sentences out loud, without requiring them to write. As their spelling develops, our children can begin to write sentences using the GPCs they have been taught so far, spelling some words in a phonically plausible way, even if sometimes incorrectly.  As children’s knowledge of the alphabetic code increases, we encourage correct spelling 

Planning

Through these carefully planned units, children study a range of genres and have the opportunities to read, respond, analyse, gather content, plan, take part in a highly modelled write and then write independently.

Spelling, punctuation and grammar activities are woven into each days planning as part of a grammar warm up.  These skills are then explicitly modelled as part of the joint writing phase.

Working walls are used to show the progression through the unit. The content of the literacy working wall changes regularly to support learning and teaching as it develops in the classroom thus allowing children to access prior learning, make links to what they already know and apply this to future learning. The working wall enables children to refer to concepts and resources, supporting them to become more secure independent learners.

Handwriting 

Learning to form letters and spell words requires considerable effort and attention. For this reason we do not teach a cursive or pre-cursive script in Reception. 

Environment 

At Howick we know that calm classrooms give our children the best chance to interact and make progress in reading and writing.  Our behaviour policy is used to set expectations for the learning environment so that it is allow for optimum learning opportunities.   

Impact

As a result of our commitment to reading and writing, we have a community of enthusiastic readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy knowledge and skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.

World Book Day – Ultimate Character Battle!

At Howick we are keen to ensure that our children enjoy reading.  Reading for fun, whether it is books, comics or even articles, has so many benefits. Children who read regularly tend to have better vocabulary, writing skills, and overall learning abilities plus it sparks creativity, improves focus and strengthens their minds. Reading is not just about school, it is a great way to enjoy stories, explore new ideas and relax.  Besides the academic benefits, reading also helps children build empathy and understand different perspectives. It can be a great escape from daily stresses, offering a quiet and enjoyable break.

We want reading to be something our children enjoy, not just another task.   As part of this drive, this year for World Book Day we had a whole school Ultimate Character Battle!  This oracy-based activity allowed our children to explore the characters they enjoy reading about the most in a way that encouraged creativity in their discussion and presentational talk, bringing reading for pleasure into the classroom.  

During World Book Day the children all completed activities in class around their favourite character.  They also used their artistic skills to create a representation of their character at home.

National Story Telling Day

Our Student Council planned some wonderful activities for National Story Telling Day, allowing us to share our love of reading together as a school.  The teachers all read a short snippet of a different genre of writing to the children during a special assembly, tempting them to want to read more!  The children then chose which class to go to so they could listen to the rest of the story. We also got together to share our favourite stories, with the older children in our school reading to the younger members. 

Class 3 Writing Workshop

Class 3 took part in an interactive session with poet Nikita Gill.  During the session they looked at ways to create a Remembrance Poem, learning lots of new ways to create a piece of writing.  This was a great opportunity for the children and we look forward to sharing their work with families at our Remembrance Service

World Book Day 2024

This year we used World Book Day as a way of celebrating and promoting our love of reading.  The children were all challenged to use the libraries in their heads to work out which books the teachers favourite quotes had come from.  They then shared stories with children in other classes during our books and biscuits session.  We also challenged the children to create their own story spoons.  Their wonderful creations were used to retell stories with other children. 

We Love Reading

At Howick we have been working really hard to promote reading for pleasure.

Following the success of the Fantastic Book Awards in Year 6 last year, this year both Year 2 and 6 are involved in the initiative.

We have also been really fortunate to receive a donation from one of our families which has been used to purchase a walking library to be used on the play ground and to improve our class reading areas.  The children have chosen their own books which include different authors, backgrounds and cultures.

Reading at home - how can I help my child? 

 Reading with your child everyday is extremely beneficial.

Please see the files below for information on how to help with this.