Teaching English at St. Michael’s

1. Teaching English at St. Michael’s

2. Different aspects of literacy • Guided reading • Writing • Phonics • Speaking and listening • There is now a SPAG test at the end of year 6, where children are expected to know different elements of grammar and use them correctly.

3. Children have a reading and writing target. There is an over arching class target and they are layered according to their ability. They are displayed in children’s home school records, literacy and RE books.

4. Guided reading • Group reading and questioning with teacher • Sentence level work • Written comprehension (with support) • Bug club • Independent reading from a choice of texts, including fiction/non-fiction, newspapers and information books

5. Writing As a whole school we use ‘target writing’ to improve the quantity and quality of children’s writing, using termly target. 2 shorter input sessions earlier in the week that relate to class target. Independent written task every week. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/english/spelling_grammar/verbs_adverbs/play/

6. The written piece of work at the end of the week will follow a modelled piece of writing from the teacher and the children are normally shown or come up with an agreed success criteria, so they know exactly what is expected. • We encourage peer and self assessment and also use marking ladders. Time is given for children to respond to feedback and correct spellings.

7. Literacy units range from 2-5 weeks and children will complete a piece of work that teachers level at the end of the unit. Discreet punctuation, grammar and spelling lessons are taught across different units. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100612050234/http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/150264 We use a range of different tools to immerse children in the unit.

8. Phonics Phonemes are the smallest units of sound and children from reception class onwards are taught to break words down in to their smallest sounds and then ‘sound them out’ – blending and segmenting.

9. Phonics is taught daily, again in a carousel of activity. There are 2 activities with an adult, spelling city games and tests, group games and individual tasks. The children have weekly spelling list that will focus on a particular sound (plus common words that children need to know), which are uploaded onto spelling city for access in the classroom and at home. http://www.spellingcity.com/MrsPB/

10. Speaking and listening We use a range of activities to encourage children to talk. We also regularly encourage paired and group discussion. The children LOVE drama and we encourage them to act out and orally rehearse sentences. Children also read through examples of different genres for them to annotate or find examples of techniques authors use.

11. What can you do to help? • Hear them read regularly and encourage them to read a range of different texts by different authors. • Ask them questions about what they have read, what they think about it, what they think will happen and what specific words mean or why the author chose that word. • Help children learn spellings, check they understand the words and discuss possible sentences to include those words. • Encourage your child to use bug club and spelling city at home, if possible. • When your child is set written homework (across the curriculum), read through what they have written and see you can help them to improve it - high expectation are set in school and you can help to re-enforce these at home! • Talk to your child about what they have been doing in literacy at school. Children love talking about their learning and are encouraged to reflect on it at the end of every week.