Literacy

At Marlborough Primary School with the implementation of the National Curriculum 2014, we strive for all children to be a “Primary Literate Pupil”.
By the time they leave school we aim for the children to be able to:

* Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range
of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.
* Have an interest in books and read for enjoyment; have an interest in words and
their meanings, developing a growing vocabulary in both spoken and written forms;
* Understand a range of text type and genres- be able to write in a variety of styles
and forms appropriate to the situation;
* Develop the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness; have a
suitable vocabulary to articulate their responses
* Speak and listen with confidence in a range of situations.

In the Foundation Stage (FS 1 and 2)
Children should be given opportunities to:
* Speak, listen and represent ideas in their activities in their activities and through
structured play;
* Use communication, language and literacy in every part of the curriculum;
* Become immersed in an environment rich in print and possibilities for
communication.

At Key Stage One (Years One and Two)
Children should learn to speak confidently and listen to what others have to say. They
should begin to read and write independently and with enthusiasm. They should use language to explore their own experience and imaginary words through structured play.

At Key Stage Two (Years Three to Six)
Children should learn to change the way they speak and write to suit different situations, purposes and audiences. They should read a range of texts and respond to different layers of meaning in them. They should explore the use of language in a range of texts and learn how the structure of language works.

Approaches to Speaking and Listening
The four strands of Speaking and Listening: Speaking, Listening. Group Discussion and Interaction and Drama permeate the whole curriculum. Interactive teaching strategies are used to engage all pupils in order to raise reading and writing standards. Children are encouraged to develop effective communication skills in readiness for later life.

Approaches to Reading
Opportunities are provided within the literacy lesson to develop children’s reading skills through the use of shared and guided reading. Shared reading usually takes place at the begging of a unit as a text (or texts) is being explored and the teacher models how to decode words and understand the meaning of the text.
During Foundation and Year 1 the focus will be on developing all pre-reading skills, through listening to and discussing stories and text, letter recognition activities and segmenting and blending using phonics.
These skills will be extended during the subsequent years, with emphasis shifting to
improving comprehension of more involved text and increasing children’s vocabulary.
Guided reading books are linked to themes and a record kept of each group’s progression.
Individual readers are taken from the reading scheme which is booked banded and
ensures children’s progression. Books are sent home along with reading diaries to provide a home school link and to reinforce the child’s learning. As children become fluent readers they are able to choose their reading books from a structured system in the school library.
Within Foundation and Key Stage 1 a daily discrete phonics session is taught, following the programme laid down in Read Write Inc to provide the children with appropriate
skills to help them decode words when reading. This programme is sometimes extended into
Key Stage 2 for those children that still need those skills reinforced.
Approaches to Writing
When presenting a writing activity to the pupils the purpose of the writing will be made clear and the audience who will read the “finished work” should be identified. Class teachers will look for opportunities to stimulate writing activities for authentic purposees, although sometimes these will have to be imaginative. These activities should include
and endorse the children’s own experiences and where appropriate make cross-curricular
thematic links. This will improve their motivation and give them a sense of purpose.
Within the writing sessions opportunities are found to refer to Building Learning Power
in order to allow the children to become independent learners. During their writing, in both shared and guided, children are be taught grammar, spelling and handwriting techniques. Opportunities to develop these skills should also be planned in at different times in the curriculum. The teaching of tricky words will be taught during the daily phonics lessons. Children are encouraged to use their phonic knowledge to help sound out words when writing and at the beginning this may only
include initial sounds, gradually developing into more complex words Stages in the development of a piece of writing will be explored within the class and displayed on the learning wall. The writing process will be done in stages or drafts and as the children progress through KS2 they should become more independent at re-drafting their own work.
Cross-curricular Literacy Opportunities
Teachers seek to take advantage of opportunities to make cross-curricular links through our thematic curriculum. They plan for pupils to practise and apply the skills, knowledge and understanding acquired through literacy lessons to other areas of the curriculum.