Reading at Charles Warren Academy

Intent

At Charles Warren Academy reading is at the heart of our curriculum. We believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. A Charles Warren reader is a knowledgeable and confident reader who reads with volition and joy. 

We aim to provide children with a literacy-rich environment, an extensive range of high quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities, which will help them to:

• Gain a life-long enjoyment of reading and books

• Read accurately, fluently and with understanding

• Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed

• Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence

• Develop a good knowledge of vocabulary 

• Read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts

• Read fluently, and with confidence, across the curriculum

Implementation

We use the synthetic phonics scheme Read Write Inc to teach early reading skills with books that match childrens specific phonic ability. 

Alongside this we use Ark English Mastery. Pupils will develop their ability to read independently and for a sustained amount of time as well as developing their understanding of books and stories and be able to retrieve, infer, predict, compare, explore vocabulary and discuss texts in detail. 

In KS1 we use ‘Talk Through Stories’ to teach reading to supplement the teaching of Phonics. This program is part of the RWI scheme and has been developed to support children to extend and deepen their vocabulary so that they can read and enjoy stories. The stories we selected because we believe they are stories the children will love. There are a variety of classic books such as “Dogger” by Shirley Hughes and "Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak. As well as newer texts such as “Perfectly Norman” by Tom Percival and “I’m in Charge” by Jeanne Willis. We are passionate about children seeing themselves in stories. As such, we have ensured there is a selection of books where children from minority ethnic backgrounds were the main protagonists in everyday situations. 

We provide a text rich environment, in order to encourage a positive culture of reading throughout all classes and promote reading for pleasure, we have daily book voting sessions, 10 minute reading pledge and a book vending machine. We have books of the month focus which aim to expand children's knowledge of genres and authors as well as a group of pupil Reading Champions who are active in supporting reading across the whole school. We use RWInc tutoring and Fresh Start as well as Lexia as a tool to support to ensure all children are confident and competent readers. 

Impact

Our pupils will be knowledgeable and confident readers who read with volition and joy. Our pupils will be able to apply their reading skills in everyday life.  They will have started to develop their own preferences for reading including likes and dislikes of genres and this will support them in becoming life-long readers. 

For more information about how phonics is taught at CWA please click here to take you to the phonics curriculum page

Writing at Charles Warren Academy 

Intent

Writing has an important place in education and in society. It is an essential skill and the ability to write with confidence and accuracy is a tool which will support a child through life. It is our intent that our children understand the social functions of writing in order to use different genres of writing appropriately by considering its purpose and matching it to its audience. Furthermore, it is our intent that every child develops a progressive understanding of grammatical conventions, the way in which punctuation aids understanding and how to apply spelling rules. It is also our intent that all children have a joined, legible and increasingly efficient handwriting style. Through our teaching of writing, we intend to impart pupils with the knowledge, understanding and skills they need in order to reach their potential as individuals

At Charles Warren Academy, the teaching of writing within the English curriculum has been carefully considered to enable our pupils to become confident and creative writers. We use the Ark English to structure our learning and to teach vocabulary, alongside National Curriculum objectives for spelling, punctuation and grammar. 

Implementation

We use Ark English to teach writing. Core quality texts stand at the core of our English planning where we strive to intrinsically integrate the teaching of reading and writing. Children engage deeply with carefully selected texts as we foster their ability to: read as readers, read as writers and finally write as readers. In this way, we are able to assist the children in their development of a rich vocabulary and of texts which are written with careful precision to captivate their audience. Model texts for specific writing units which aim to demonstrate to the children the language techniques which are to be taught and developed.  The writing process is always modelled by the teacher during shared writing sessions. Because talk plays a central role in our curriculum, both English and beyond, children quickly develop in confidence whilst embedding their core communication skills and subsequently develop as articulate citizens. 

Impact

In Writing, by the end of EYFS children will:

Be able to write recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed. They will be able to spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters. It is expected that they will also write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others. Children will show good control and co-ordination in their small movements. They will handle equipment and tools effectively, including pencils for writing.

By the end of Key Stage 1 children will:

Be able to write narratives, both real and fictional. Children will write using past and present tense mostly correctly and consistently. Children will demarcate sentences using capital letters, full stops and question marks most accurately. Children will spell most common exception words correctly. Handwriting will show consistency in letter sizing.

By the end of Key Stage 2 children will:

Be able to write for a range of purposes and audiences showing increasing manipulation of sentence structures. Children will be able to use a range of devices to build cohesion within and across paragraphs. They will select and use grammatical structures that reflect what the writing requires. They will use a range of punctuation and maintain tense throughout a piece of writing. Children will spell most words correctly or will be able to use resources quickly and efficiently in order to support spelling. Handwriting will be consistently joined in line with the school policy.

Any child working below their age-related expectation will receive a tailored curriculum with personalised objectives. This will enable all children to build the skills and knowledge needed to bridge the gap between themselves and their peers enabling them to reach their full potential.