Literacy & LANGUAGES

Throughout their education, children and young people should experience an environment which is rich in language and which sets high expectations for literacy and the use of language. Children and young people need to spend time with stories, literature and other texts which will enrich their learning, develop their language skills and enable them to find enjoyment. Spoken language has particular importance in the early years. Teachers will balance play-based learning with more systematic development and learning of skills and techniques for reading, including phonics.

EMERGENT LITERACY

Emerging Literacy is matching the teaching and learning of literacy, language and communication to the needs of each child. Informed by the developmental knowledge of Educational Psychologists, Occupational Therapists and Speech and Language Therapists, Emerging Literacy has classified the many foundational reading and writing skills into four key skill areas: concepts of print, oral language, phonological awareness and pre-handwriting.

Years of international research has identified foundational skill areas which predict literacy attainment, not just in the first year in school but into later primary and beyond. It is a simple fact that children come into school with a wide range of levels and security of these skills – some of which may be due to previous learning experience, but much is related to normal (biological) variation in development.

Taking a developmental approach to Emerging Literacy supports us to identify the strengths and gaps of each learner within these key skill areas as well as providing planning support to address the identified skill gaps.

READING

Our reading programme at Kellands involves a progression through a variety of books; wordless books, ORT stories, non-fiction books and chapter books. Children will read in class in small groups, learning about word decoding, intonation and punctuation. These group sessions are also used for oral comprehension.

We have also introduced a new whole class reading project in the upper school. This involves studying a variety of genres based around a topic to further develop children's understanding of different texts and media.

WORLD BOOK DAY

At Kellands School, we fully believe that the joys of reading know no bounds and we encourage our young people to read every day. The much-celebrated World Book Day comes but once a year.

We do not dress up for World Book Day at Kellands. There’s nothing wrong with dressing up, it just shouldn’t be the focus of this day, and we want to encourage a love of reading without the added distraction and unnecessary stress for parents and carers. So, for that reason, we save our dressing up or dressing down days for the last day of each term and keep the emphasis on fostering the love of great stories.

That is not to say that we don't have fun, this year we had a whole-school focus on ‘Our Tower’, a picture book written by Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho. Each class read the story then celebrated it with various activities linked to the text. We also had a Masked Reader event as part of our Digital Assembly and classes came together with their buddy classes to ‘share a story’.

"Outside you don't always get to choose who you are, but in a story you can be anything. A story is another world, you can see beautiful things, learn new words and relax. Your imagination will go on forever!" - P5 Pupil

PHONICS AND SPELLING

At Kellands we have developed a comprehensive and progressive phonics and spelling programme. We use a wrap around phonics programme and the actions, music and rhymes of Jolly Phonics to provide a multi-sensory approach. Alongside the teaching of phonics, we also teach tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out using phonics) that we encounter in our reading books and are necessary for writing.

These progressions are split into year groups or stages, but pupils can work at a higher or lower level, to allow them to progress at a pace that is developmentally appropriate for them.

Click to view Stage 1 progression

Click to view Stage 2 progression

Click to view Stage 3 progression

Click to view Stage 4 & 5 progression

We have created a dedicated website as a resource for parents and carers in order to support our Kellands kiddies with their phonics acquisition at home. This can be visited here: Phonics and Spelling Hub

Grammar, Punctuation and Handwriting

At Kellands we have developed progressions for grammar, punctuation and handwriting to ensure that all children experience a consistent approach to their literacy education.

These progressions are split into year groups or stages, but pupils can work at a higher or lower level, to allow them to progress at a pace that is developmentally appropriate for them.

Grammar Progression
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Punctuation Progression
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Handwriting Progression
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WRITING

At Kellands, we focus on developing writing skills as well as knowledge and understanding of subject content. In order to develop these skills successfully, our learners have frequent opportunities to write in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes. Learning and teaching focuses on the process of writing and offer learners the opportunity to reflect on their progress in key skills so that they are aware of what they need to do to improve. All teachers should have high, but appropriate, expectations of the ability of learners to improve their writing skills.

On the right you can view our writing genre progression. We use this to ensure that our learners are experiencing a wide range of different types of writing, at stages that are appropriate to them.

Writing Genre Progression
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TALKING AND LISTENING

Talking and listening skills are essential for learners’ development. Not only do they help to build self-esteem, but the ability to present and debate with confidence will help pupils throughout their educational and adult lives.

At Kellands, progress and achievement within listening and talking will be evidenced as young people achieve across these key themes: engaging with a broad range of increasingly complex texts, including Scottish and Scots texts; developing and applying knowledge and understanding of language; finding, using and organising information, including developing critical literacy skills; using listening strategies to understand, analyse and evaluate texts; creating texts of increasing complexity using more sophisticated language.

Scots poetry

The Scots language is an essential element of the culture and heritage of Scotland. For many of us, it is a familiar aspect of our song, poetry and literature and a recognised feature of how we express ourselves in our community life. At Kellands, we express our love of Scots through our much coveted Burns Award in January each year. Children throughout the School learn Scots poems and each class chooses a representative to perform at a special Scots assembly. The whole-staff team then take it to a vote, and choose a winner from each of the three units.

MODERN LANGUAGES

Today’s children are growing up in a multilingual world and the ability to communicate effectively in social, academic and commercial settings is crucial if they are to play their full part as global citizens.

At Kellands, we aim to teach two languages in addition to English, in line with The Scottish Government's 1+2 approach to language learning. Children work through a French progression from Primary 1 to Primary 7 and are then introduced to another language (Spanish) in Primary 5 through to Primary 7. Please view the Progression for each language below.

French Progression
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Spanish Progression
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