“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” Robert Louis Stevenson

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Reading

Learning to read is the most important thing a child can learn. At Streatham Wells our intent is that children develop a love for reading at an early age through our curriculum, our phonics programme, teaching of reading skills and by nurturing a love of reading to help develop them into people who read for pleasure throughout their lives. We know the advantages that reading for pleasure reaps; increased mental wellbeing, better health literacy, increased social mobility and higher overall academic attainment and this is why nurturing a reading for pleasure community is our main priority. Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum with high quality, diverse and engaging texts being used throughout.  We recognise the importance in ensuring that each child is able to see themselves represented and valued in the texts that we use. Reading has a high status within our school community; our reading spaces are inviting, special reading events occur frequently, all staff are expected to be readers themselves and parents are involved through workshops and special reading events to ensure they are a part of their child’s reading journey. 

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The teaching of reading begins in the early years where in nursery children have high exposure to letters of the alphabet and the sounds attached to them. In Reception, we teach daily phonics through the programme Read, Write Inc. These daily phonics sessions continue in Key Stage 1, where we assess children half termly in order to group learners according to their needs, ensuring we can deliver personalised teaching.  Read, Write Inc. continues into year 2, where children will move on to our Streatham Wells Reading Scheme and whole class teaching once they are expert decoders. The Streatham Wells Reading Scheme is a whole class, skills focused approach to reading; all of the reading skills which children are assessed at the end of key stage statutory tests are split into lessons across the week and taught through teacher modelling and high quality texts. In these lessons, children have the opportunity to listen to teachers modelling reading aloud, reading aloud themselves, reading independently and reading with peers. The more able are challenged through teacher questioning and high level tasks. Reading skills are continually developed through the wider curriculum. Class teachers read class novels to children so that every child experiences the joy of being read to. 

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We strive for our children to make accelerated progress in reading through quality first teaching, our reading for pleasure community and our robust phonics programme. Summative assessments are carried out half termly; phonics in Reception and KS1 and reading comprehension tests in KS2 to track progress and attainment.

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Writing

Our intent is that all children see themselves as writers who are able to communicate their opinions, emotions and creativity confidently.  At Streatham Wells we believe that writing opportunities should be engaging, varied and have high quality and diverse texts at their core. We expose children to a variety of writing styles and text types so that by the time they leave us, they are well rounded writers with the ability to adapt their writing to suit different audiences and purposes. We teach handwriting, grammar, punctuation and spelling through engaging lessons planned around our curriculum texts because the more confident children are with these transcriptional skills, the easier expressing themselves as writers becomes. Each learner’s writing journey is different and we believe that quality first teaching of writing is the most important element in ensuring that every child makes progress as a writer and reaches their full potential. 

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In EYFS, letter formation is taught through our phonics programme and writing stations and activities always feature in our continuous provision. Handwriting is taught daily in EYFS, KS1 and Lower Key Stage 2 and 2-3 times weekly in Upper Key Stage 2. Using core and supplementary texts from our curriculum maps, teachers plan sequences of lessons that equip children with the necessary grammar, punctuation, spelling and vocabulary to complete a ‘Big Write’ of a specific text type. Practitioners teach children to think as writers by modelling the writing process at every stage and children are given lots of opportunities to analyse high quality writing examples. We ensure a wide and thorough coverage of text types through subject monitoring and long, medium and short term planning. We believe in instant feedback during lessons so that teachers are able to move children’s writing on during the writing process. Part of the writing process is developing good oracy skills, which we focus on by using ABC Oracy (Agree, Build, Challenge) during the teacher input.

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We strive for our children to make accelerated progress in writing through quality first teaching, high expectations of our learners, writing opportunities that come from language rich and diverse texts and on the spot feedback that moves learners on. Writing is assessed formatively and continually with each ‘Big Write’ that the children complete. Progress can be seen in children’s books which are monitored termly through book scrutinies by senior and subject leaders. Teacher judgements of children’s writing standards are internally moderated termly as well as external moderations occurring in years 2 and 6 on a yearly basis.

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Pupils will learn both the correct grammatical structure of our language and how to use our language to inform, entertain, persuade, and discuss. They will have the chance to write extended pieces and to publish their work. Within units of learning, pupils will use drama to rehearse ideas and to develop their use of prosody. Pupils will be taught and have the chance to practice their spelling and handwriting discreetly.

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How you can help at home

Creating opportunities to write at home is a great way to promote a love of writing: diaries, letters and postcards are easy ways to engage children. If your child is reluctant you may find that having a special pen or notepad helps. Writing doesn't have to be on paper, using a computer still helps with composition and sentence structure. Remember, if your child is making spelling or grammatical errors don't flag them all up. Instead, pick 1-2 things that you can ask your child to double check.

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