Literacy and English:

In Literacy and English the school strives to achieve a correct balance of listening, talking, reading and writing. Pupils are taught to listen carefully and competently, talk confidently and fluently, read with understanding and enthusiasm and write with expression and accuracy. Inverclyde Literacy and English Progression Pathways are in place to ensure all pupils are learning at the correct pace. Our core Reading Schemes are Rigby Star and Literacy World. In addition to this we have a large variety of class novels. The other resources we use are:

• Active Literacy at the early stages to develop children’s phonics and word attack skills. Jolly Phonics in P1 & P2
• Jolly Grammar in P2 & P3
• Nelson Spelling which involves teaching a weekly spelling rule and builds upon the work of Active Literacy in P1 and P2.
• Accelerated Reading Scheme for Pr3-7 pupils to enhance reading and comprehension skills
• Nelson Handwriting is used to enhance our handwriting programme.
• ‘The Big Write’ is an approach which provides a very clear structure for developing and assessing writing. This approach encourages children to develop their vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation (VCOP) through active learning.
• Class Novels are used to help further develop reading skills and as part of Interdisciplinary Learning eg The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is used to enhance learning as part of the context of World War 2 in P7.
• The Book Fair visits the school each year, the children are given the opportunity to buy quality books from a good selection while at the same time allowing the school to purchase books for the class libraries with the commission raised.