Teachers organise visits from theatre groups to bring the written word to life. This has included touring productions of "The Little Princess" by Frances Hodges Burnett, "The Reluctant Dragon" by Kenneth Grahame and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare. The shows involve audience participation as well as small acting roles to provide childtren with the opportunity to develop their speaking and listening skills. 

All children take on roles in our own school productions from Nursery to Year 2. They learn the value of memorising lines and speaking clearly with voice projection. All children join in the singing, learning many songs, which give them a good grounding in acquiring vocabulary to use in their reading and writing as well as contributing to confidence in speaking aloud.

Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

 

How will my child be taught to read?

We use a programme of systematic synthetic phonics called Read, Write, Inc. We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are. Children in our Nursery are introduced to the first set of vocabulary and sounds they will need when they start school to give them a head start. 

 

The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.

The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.

 

The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps their writing.

 

How will I know how well my child is doing?

We will always let you know how well your child is doing. We assess the children every six weeks to find out how they are getting on in reading. We use this information to decide what reading group they should be in. Your child will work with children who are at the same reading level as him or her. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress than the others. Your child will have one-to-one support if we think he or she needs some extra help to keep up.

 

In the summer term, the government asks us to do a phonics check of all the Year 1 children. That gives us extra information about their progress. We will talk to you about how well your child has done, and especially if we have any worries at all.

 

How long will it take to learn to read well?

By the end of Year 2, your child should be able to read aloud books that are at the right level for his or her age. When your child transfer to the Junior School in Year 3, they oncentrate more on helping children to understand what they are reading, although this work begins very early on. This happens when the teacher reads to the children and also when the children read their own story book.

 

How do I know the teaching will be good?

All the staff have been trained to teach reading in the way we do it in this school. We have regular staff training as we believe that it is very important that all the teachers and teaching assistants work in the same way. It is the job of the reading leader to observe and coach other teachers teaching to make sure that the children are learning in the way we want them to learn. 

If you are worried about the teaching or you have any questions, please come to school and talk to us.

 

What can I do to help? Is there anything that I shouldn't do?

You will be provided with information to help support your child with their reading. Your child will bring different sorts of books home from school. It helps if you know whether this is a book that your child can read on their own or whether this is a book that you should read to them. The teacher will have explained which is which. Please trust your child’s teacher to choose the book(s) that will help your child the most.

 

Help your child to sound out the letters in words and then to ‘push’ the sounds together to make a whole word. Try not to refer to the letters by their names. Help your child to focus on the sounds. You can hear how to say the sounds correctly at this link: https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents-copy-2/

 

Sometimes your child might bring home a picture book that they know well. Please don’t say, ‘This is too easy.’ Instead, encourage your child to tell you the story out loud; ask them questions about things that happen or what they think about some of the characters in the story.

 

We know parents and carers are very busy people. But if you can find time to read to your child as much as possible, it helps him or her to learn about books and stories. They also learn new words and what they mean. Show that you are interested in reading yourself and talk about reading as a family. You can find out about good stories to read to your child here: https://www.facebook.com/miskin.education

 

Does it matter if my child misses a lesson or two?

It matters a lot if your child misses school. The way we teach children to read is very well organised, so even one missed lesson means that your child has not learnt something that they need to know to be a good reader.

 

What if he or she finds it difficult to learn to read?

We want children to learn to read, however long it takes us to teach them. We will find out very quickly if your child is finding reading difficult. First, we move children to a different group, so that we can make sure that they have learnt what they need to know. If they still struggle, we give them extra time with an adult, on their own. These adults are specially trained to support these children. Your child will still be in the same group with the other children and won’t miss out on any of the class lessons.If we have any serious worries about your child’s reading, we will talk to you about this. Some children take a bit longer to learn to put sounds together to read a word, e.g. c-a-t to make the word ‘cat’. 

 

What if my child turns out to be dyslexic?

The way we teach reading is especially helpful for children who might be dyslexic. This is because we use a very well-organised programme that has a strong focus on phonics. This is very important for children who find learning to read difficult. If you are worried about your child, please come and talk to us.

 

My child has difficulty pronouncing some sounds. Will this stop him learning to read through phonics?

This isn’t a problem for learning to read as long as we know what sound the child is trying to say. This is not something to worry about. Many children have a few sounds that they can hear clearly but find it difficult to say, particularly the l-sound, r-sound, w-sound, th-sound, s-sound, sh-sound and j-sound. Often they say a t-sound for the c-sound; "tttssh" for the s-sound; "w" for the r-sound and "r" for the l-sound. You can help your child by encouraging him or her to look at your mouth when you say the sound. Whatever you do, do not make your child feel a failure. They can easily learn to read, even if they find one or two sounds difficult to say.

 

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns. We are here to help.

 

All writing in the first instance stems from our phonics. As children’s phonic ability increases so does their writing. All attempts at mark making are valued and encouraged. Sitting at a table with a pencil or pen is not the only way to write. Using chalk, water and paintbrushes, sticks in sand and gloop are all valuable yet creative ways of teaching children how to develop a good pencil grip and the strength to write. Before young children can attempt to write, they need to have good core strength and balance. Children in our Nursery and Foundation 2 units are encouraged to be physically active.

Our learning environment gives our youngest children plenty of opportunities to practise and hone their gross and fine motor skills and writing is therefore delivered through a balance of teaching and exploration of the indoor and outdoor provision. We have carefully designed our Foundation and Year 1 classrooms to provide equipment to work and play on that develops both fine and gross motor skills so that children's ability to hold tools like pencils grows over time. 

Children's writing is linked to the sounds that the children are learning in the Read, Write, Inc programme. The children write every day, rehearsing out loud what they want to say, before spelling the words using the graphemes and ‘tricky’ words they know.

They practise handwriting every day: sitting at a table comfortably, they learn correct letter formation and how to join letters speedily and legibly.

Children’s composition (ideas, vocabulary and grammar) is developed by drawing on their own experiences and talking about the stories they read.

In September 2021, all teaching staff (both teachers and teaching assistants) renewed their Read, Write Inc. training and have access to the training portal to enable them to upskill their knowledge in teaching systematic synthetic phonics. This has made the profile of teaching phonics high which is reflected in the outstanding quality of phonics lessons being taught throughout the school.

Wherever possible, our teachers are engaged in discussion of what constitutes high quality teaching and learning in English. These discussions are set within a practical context of real work children will be engaged in so that principles emerge from practice and can then be applied to other contexts. Time is provided for staff to work together on planning and curriculum development.