Reading

At Blackthorn Primary School we aspire for every child to become a reader and to keep them reading. Our reading curriculum aims to develop confident, fluent readers who read for understanding and to broaden their knowledge of the world through books. 

How do we teach reading?

• A dedicated daily RWI lesson, for EYFS, KS1 and those requiring additional support in KS2, enables children to build phonic knowledge to support them as readers.
• Children’s learning in English is structured through Reading Journeys so that over time the children build experience of a wide range of texts from the best children’s literature has to offer.
• Blackthorn’s Reading Strategy implements the Reading Journey and structures the daily teaching of vocabulary and comprehension.
• Vocabulary is explicitly taught each week in every class and displayed for children to practice using independently.
• Reading question stems for KS1 and KS2 promote the development of a range of comprehension skills.
• Reading fluency is intentionally developed in EYFS and KS1 through RWI and in KS2 through the revisiting of texts.
• Children develop stamina as readers through the Reading Challenges.
• Every child has a reading scheme book at their reading level; to read to an adult in school each week and take home to share with family.
• Reading is developed and extended through the wider curriculum.
• Every class has book time at the end of the day where story themes and characters are explored, enjoyed and discussed.
• Every child accesses the school’s library each week.
• Reading and the enjoyment of books is celebrated by everyone at Blackthorn Primary School

Writing

At Blackthorn Primary School we aim for every child to become a fluent and confident communicator of language, who can express themselves articulately in both their spoken and written language. Through a text rich curriculum, we are determined for every child to leave us in Year 6 able to write skilfully, independently utilising a range of genre and for a variety of purposes.

How do we teach writing?

• Developing communication and language begins as a core priority of EYFS along with specialist speech and language support.
• Children’s learning in English is structured through Reading Journeys so that over time the children have opportunities to write about and be inspired by a wide range of the best children’s literature there is to offer.
• Blackthorn’s Writing Strategy structures the daily teaching of writing and is based on the Reading Journey texts.
• Progression of grammar and punctuation skills is mapped from Year 1 to Year 6 so that children revisit and build on knowledge over time.
• Weekly opportunities to apply knowledge of grammar and punctuation to a variety of contexts, forms part of the school’s Writing Strategy.
• A dedicated daily RWI lesson, for EYFS, KS1 and those requiring additional support in KS2, enables children to build phonic knowledge to support them as writers.
• Spelling in KS2 is taught discretely through the structured scheme Get Spelling, in order to systematically build on phonic knowledge learned in Key Stage 1 through RWI.
• Writing fluency is developed through the use of Kinetic Letters as a structured approach for teaching handwriting
• Writing skills are applied and extended through the wider curriculum.
• We recognise that reading and writing as symbiotic and so the links with the reading curriculum are significant and valued at Blackthorn. As such our aims for reading influence and compliment the aims for writing and vice versa.