Within Curriculum for Excellence the literacy framework has three elements:

• Listening and Talking
• Reading
• Writing

Listening and Talking skills permeate all areas of the curriculum. Children learn how to contribute ideas and opinions confidently and clearly, whilst respecting the rights of others to be heard through group tasks, debates and individual talks.

Children develop their reading skills using a variety of approaches. We aim to foster a positive reading culture within our school where children are reading for enjoyment on a regular basis and developing positive reading habits at their own level.  We make effective use of an extensive bank of both fiction and non-fiction resources within our class and school library and our literacy programme, developing and enriching childrens’ reading experiences and cultural capital.

Our accelerated reading approach encourages children to read for pleasure at an accurate level for their stage of reading development.

In Writing, we have a structured approach to the development of writing, using ‘Big Writing’ strategies to support us with the teaching of writing. Children are encouraged to focus on their use of vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation (known as VCOP) in order to make their writing more interesting.  Children are engaged in writing in a wide variety of genres and meaningful contexts.

We develop phonics and spelling in a structured and progressive programme from P1-P7 using Jolly Phonics and Nelson Spelling. Each child from P1-P3 has a magnetic board and letters which they use to develop phonological awareness and word building strategies using the active approach of:

Say It, Make It, Read It, Write It, Break It, Blend It