Throughout their education, children and young people should experience an environment which is rich in language and which sets high expectations for literacy and the use of language. Children and young people need to spend time with stories, literature and other texts which will enrich their learning, develop their language skills and enable them to find enjoyment. Spoken language has particular importance in the early years. Teachers will balance play-based learning with more systematic development and learning of skills and techniques for reading, including phonics.

Literacy is fundamental to all areas of learning as it unlocks access to the wider curriculum. Being literate increases opportunities for the individual in all aspects of life and lays the foundations for lifelong learning and work.

Listening and Talking

Listening and Talking activities take place across the curriculum and are planned to ensure that children develop skills in interacting and presenting, listening to and talking about texts and ideas and to develop collaborative working. Skills developed range from simple turn taking to being able to respond to literal, inferential and evaluative questions.

Reading

Children will learn the core skills of reading through a systematic and progressive programme which incorporates initial sight vocabulary and develops phonic, blending and word attack skills.

Children learn a variety of reading skills (referred to as higher order reading skills) such as prediction, summarising and clarifying new or difficult vocabulary. They are encouraged to read orally and for enjoyment.

Writing

Children will experience Enjoyment and choice within a motivating and challenging environment, helping them to develop an awareness of the relevance of texts in their lives.

The ‘Tools for writing’ are taught in order to help pupils communicate effectively:

Handwriting skills are paramount and will be formally taught starting in the early years with the correct formation of letters, letter size and spacing. As children move up the school they will be taught continuous cursive script, and this will be the expected form of all ‘school writing’.

Spelling is an integral part of the writing process and aids communication. A multisensory and multi strategy approach is used to provide a variety of learning experiences to suit different learning styles

Punctuation needs to be accurate for writing to make sense to the reader. The range and complexity is developed as pupils become more experienced writers.

Sentence structure/ grammar is developed throughout the week giving children opportunities to progress in order to build length, detail and description into their writing.

In Robslee Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (VCOP) are taught systematically and in lively, fun ways, as a build up to writing day when pupils at all stages will be given opportunities through an extended writing lesson to Create different types of texts.

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