Intent

At Darras Hall Primary School we have an engaging and inspiring English curriculum. Through high expectations, quality texts and purposeful reasons to write, children develop English skills which enable them to access the entire curriculum.

Our aim is for all children to be able to read and write fluently and confidently by:

• using a range of reading strategies to build an understanding of what they have read

• enjoying reading a range of books
• acquiring a wide and varied vocabulary from reading and use it in writing 
• identifying and use a range of grammatical features and understand why they are used
• understanding and applying spelling rules and spell common exception words

• writing coherently with a clear audience, purpose and form

• writing neatly and legibly and taking pride in their work

Implementation

At Darras Hall Primary School we follow Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised to teach phonics in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and, where necessary, Year 2.  Children take part in daily phonics sessions in a whole class or as part of a group. At the end of Year 1 children take the Phonics Screening Check. A small number of children may continue with phonics in Year 3 and beyond if required.

Children have a wide selection of books to choose from to apply their skills to read. For emerging readers, their reading books are closely matched to the phonics they are learning in class so are known as decodable texts.    

As they progress and become secure with phonics, children are introduced to a wider range of books within  Accelerated Reader, where children move through levels as their reading progresses. Accelerated Reader has a strong focus on gaining meaning from a wide range of high quality texts and includes short online quizzes matched to books that the children have read. 

Children's understanding of texts is developed using the Reciprocal Reading approach.   Reciprocal reading is a structured approach to teaching strategies (questioning, clarifying, summarising and predicting) that pupils can use to improve their reading comprehension.