Literacy

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Overview of Literacy Provision

We have been awarded an 'Innovative Practice' Award for our teaching of Grammar.  We are very proud that the school has achieved this award.   

READING

Early reading is rooted in phonics. For information about how we teach phonics in school, please refer to the Spelling and Phonics tab on the right.  Reading is a vital part of every child's development and is positively promoted throughout the school as an essential learning tool and a source of enjoyment and interest. There is a large range of books available in the school, including various reading schemes, library loans and a great variety of supplementary reference material. It is essential that children are set a positive example towards reading by adults and are encouraged to enjoy books both at home and in school from an early age. Children who come to school with a positive attitude towards books and who love and respect books will be well prepared for the task of learning to read. All the children are encouraged to share their books with each other, with their teachers and with their parents. Each child has a reading record book that goes home each night with their reading book and through which information about their reading and comments about their progress can be shared between parents and teachers.

In line with the new National Curriculum, there is now an emphasis on reading and re-reading books.  This not only helps reading fluency, but it also helps the child understand in more depth the different types of story structures.  Each class also reads a class novel, short story or material for class enjoyment.  Click on the link below to see what each class will be reading over the course of the year.

Reading for Enjoyment

Taught Reading Sessions

Every child has a daily Guided Reading lesson in school and Children in EYFS to Y2 (and sometimes beyond) also have a daily phonics lesson. Children are taught to read and to deepen their reading knowledge and understanding during these sessions. Once pupils become fluent readers, these sessions cover a variety of tasks including comprehension exercises, reading for meaning, adult led exploration sessions and how to use texts as background research information.

It is essential that children also have time to put their reading skills into practice by reading to  an adult on a daily basis. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of fitting a short 10 to 15 minute reading session into your daily routine at home. This will improve your child's education more than anything else you can do with them. Volunteers in school also listen to children read. This is reading practice rather than a taught session but is an important addition to a child's reading diet, particularly when children are at the early reading stage. If you can spare an hour or so to help with reading practice in school, please get in touch! 

 WRITING

From the time the children join our school they are encouraged to write for a range of reasons and audiences. At all times we aim to ensure that they have 'real reasons' for writing and understand the importance of this skill. This begins in the Foundation Stage with role play writing, eg listing things they need or writing notes to others. At this stage the writing is understood by the child but does not necessarily consist of correctly formed letters or words. By the time they leave St Lawrence's children will have mastered the techniques of constructing well planned and exciting writing. In handwriting the children are taught to use approach strokes from Foundation Stage and a fully cursive style is introduced in Key Stage 1. Research shows that teaching handwriting in this way aids both the speed of recording and the accuracy of spelling.

GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION

With the new Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation (SPAG) test introduced in 2013, school has re-evaluated the teaching and learning of grammar within school.  We are now proud to report, that we have  developed an internal teaching and assessment system as well as improved the provision of teaching of punctuation and grammar.  Our approach is based around academic research, and our interactive teaching allows children to have fun whilst they learn.  We have recently been awarded an 'Innovative Award' for the teaching of grammar and punctuation in May 2013.

SPELLING

We have a whole-school approach to the teaching of spelling.  We follow Letters and Sounds as a guide, splitting the teaching and learning of spelling and phonics into phases 2-6.  

Further details can be found in the Spelling and Phonics section of the website

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