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, lays the foundations for lifelong learning and work, and contributes strongly to the development of all four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence.

The Literacy and English curriculum promotes the development of critical and creative thinking as well as competence in listening and talking, reading, writing and the personal, interpersonal and team-working skills which are so important in life and in the world of work. 

The reading scheme ‘Big Cats’ is used in Primary 1-7 to complement our existing materials and provides a greater range of fiction and non-fiction texts.  Throughout the school, children are encouraged to read for pleasure.  World Book day events are organised annually to promote the love of reading at St. Paul’s. Each classroom has a wide selection of texts for pupils to choose from for personal reading and all classes have access to their class and whole school library to access a wide  range of texts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To develop writing skills we now follow the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach which enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully. Using this approach to writing , we aim to raise the standards of writing in the classroom and give our pupils the tools and skills to become life long lovers of writing.