English
English
At West Byfleet Infant School we teach English by developing the following skills:
- Spoken Language (speaking and listening)
- Reading
- Writing
- Vocabulary
- Spelling, punctuation and grammar
Children learn through a wide range of experiences: writing stories, letters, diaries, information texts, reports, poetry, the analysis of text, drama, films, plays, assemblies and songs.
Spoken Language
At West Byfleet Infant School, we develop children’s confidence and clarity in spoken language. We do this in many ways.
- Encouraging conversations. This could be through questioning, sparking interactions and giving prompts.
- Modelling and encouraging listening skills.
- Modelling speaking loudly and clearly.
- Boosting comprehension through questioning.
Developing these skills enable children to clarify their thinking and organise their ideas for writing.
Reading and Phonics
Early reading is vital for children to become confident writers. At West Byfleet Infant School, we teach Phonics every day in EYFS and KS1 using Little Wandle Letter and Sounds revised. This is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme, which is a method of teaching reading and writing, where words are broken up into their smallest units of sounds or 'phonemes'. Children learn to associate a written letter or a group of letters known as 'graphemes', with each phoneme. During the early stages, children learn a sound (phoneme), along side a mnemonic (to make it memorable) and the formation of each letter (grapheme). As the children become more confident, we teach them how to put sounds together to blend for reading and how to segment sounds to write words. Integrated into the programme children also practise Common Exception words (or 'tricky words') such as ‘we’ and ‘was’ at both home and school. By following a whole school approach, we are able to establish a progressive and consistent phonics programme allowing for success and progress.
Please visit the Little Wandle website for more information along with parental guides and resources. All resources on the website correspond with the ones that we use in school. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
We aim to foster a love of books for all children, so that they become readers for life. We use phonetically decodable texts to develop children's reading skills. To teach reading, we use books from Little Wandle Letters and Sounds; these books link directly to the phonics level that the children are currently on. This allows children to recall and apply the sounds they are learning in class. Therefore all children experience success in their reading which allows for greater enjoyment. In line with Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, we use a combination of in class assessments and formative assessments to move the children through the phonic phases up to phase 6, (phases 2- 6 are taught in school. Please see the English tab a the bottom of the page for a whole school and individual year group expectations in phonics and reading.)
Once children have achieved phase 6, they will then move onto our colour banded reading book system. These books include texts from Jelly and Bean book scheme, Oxfrord Reading Tree and Bug Club, offering the children a range of text types and genres to choose from.
Alongside this all children choose a reading book for pleasure from our well stocked school library. These books are not 'levelled' or matched to their phonic level, they are simply used to develop a love of reading. We provide a 'lending library' on our school site giving all children the opportunity to pick and choose additional texts for them to enjoy at home. Every classroom has an inviting book corner, stocked with a variety of books from different genres and stages. To see recommended reading lists for each year group, please click on the English tab at the bottom of the page.
Writing and Handwriting
We believe that the use of good quality texts is very beneficial for modelling writing. We focus on the link between reading and writing to provide children with rich opportunities. We use The Power of Reading and our own school developed, teaching sequence to ensure that children are completely immersed in high quality texts. We explore the text, use drama opportunities, vocabulary development opportunities, planning for writing, (including shared writing), extended writing opportunities and editing, all as part of our teaching sequence.
We follow the progressive Nelson handwriting scheme to ensure that children are taught to write with control and eventually (by the end of Year2) in a joined up style. We teach a ‘print style’ in EYFS with leads out and further develop this into a full joined up style in KS1.
Please find the handwriting expectations and the teaching sequence for writing for the whole school and individual year groups in the English tab at the bottom of the page.
Spelling
At West Byfleet Infant School, we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds to teach our children Phonics across EYFS, KS1. Children will learn to spell decodable words and common exception words through this programme.