Literacy Curriculum

Evening

Holmesdale Infant School

March 2015

How is Literacy taught?

One hour of Literacy every day

Weekly 15/20 minute Guided Reading /

Reciprocal reading sessions

Phonics four times a week / weekly

spellings

Independent reading

Handwriting

Speaking and Listening opportunities.

Progression Through Teaching

We teach in topics and they fall into these

main categories:

• Narrative [stories with familiar settings / by

the same author / from different cultures]

• Poetry

• Non-fiction [Information writing / lists /

recounts]

How do we start?

We start with a stimulus, and this might be:

• A book (fiction or non-fiction)

• Poem

• An excerpt from a film or book

• A photograph or painting

• A question

• Detective work

• Real life experience / drama

Getting into it!!

• We prepare the children before they write and we will do this by:

• Engaging the children in discussions either in groups or pairs.

• Collecting words or phrases and turning them sentences.

• Doing drama to get the children into a character or a situation.

• Starting a list of success criteria

Then what?

Now comes the process of reading…

• Comprehension texts.

• Reading a text that will support their

writing (modeling).

• In guided reading children will read

texts that are similar in genre and will

be suited to their ability.

• Reciprocal reading

Still with me?

Where is the writing?

The writing comes very much at the end.

By this point the children are prepared to

produce a piece of writing of a high level [they

have been taught the elements of that genre

and have developed a list of success criteria]

They will have learnt new words and phrases;

worked on punctuation and sentence structure

and studied examples and discussed them.

Where do we find out what to

teach?

The Literacy framework is the document

from which we currently plan and is set by

the government. In Sept 2014 this is to be

replaced by the new Primary Framework.

These are the strands from which we teach

from which relate to what I’ve been talking

about…

Ready?

12 strands

1) Speaking

2) Listening and responding

3) Group discussion and interaction

4) Drama

5) Word recognition, decoding (reading) and

encoding (spelling)

6) Word structure and spelling

There’s more!

4) Understanding and interpreting texts

5) Engaging and responding to texts

6) Creating and shaping texts

7) Text structure and organisation

8) Sentence structure and punctuation

9) Presentation

What about September 2014?

These ‘strands’ form the basis of all good

Literacy and will still be taught.

From Sept 2014 the New Primary

Curriculum gives teachers the freedom to

teach these, with a greater focus given to

elements such as handwriting, grammar,

spelling and punctuation – all elements

that we already work on at Holmesdale!

CREATIVITY!

• Is a vital part of learning literacy as being

creative engages children’s interest.

• Making Literacy cross-curricular also

engages their creativity and helps them

understand how important Literacy is in

everyday life and more importantly how it

will help them get a job in the future!

Helping your children at home….

Talk isn’t cheap…It’s free!!

Start where they are at…

• What are they interested in? Exploit it!

• Talk to them about it…

• Encourage them to have an opinion and

express it giving examples to back it up.

• Make sure you stay interested be a good

audience to them…

Writing… not easy! My tip is

make it real…

• Thank you letters

• Lists Christmas and

birthdays.

Making it real!

Emails to relatives or

friends.

Non-fiction:

• Just as important as

fiction.

• Tends to be

forgotten but is just

important…

• Layout and content

of non-fiction texts

always assessed in

government set tests.

Helping my child read…

• It’s not a chore if you fit in when it suits the family.

• If you get bored then have different books and magazines. Talking about what you read is just as important.

Happy tips… Great ways to help

your child practice their reading…

• Reading recipes and instructions.

• Read the web site of a film that they want to watch.

• A little every day helps with not only their reading but their spellings and writing.

Spelling…

• Weekly spellings – important to support your child. Be aware of what they are learning so you can point out the spelling patterns when you hear them read.

• You never know your child might end up on Countdown!

Spelling… Time to play!!

www.puzzlemaker.com - make your own word search.

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/hardspell/starspell_game.shtml - test the whole family!

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/spellits/ - spelling quest game.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!

The End