English

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be” - J.K. Rowling

English is at the heart of the whole curriculum at King Charles and develops pupils' key skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing through strong links to our thematic topics .

Pupils are taught in Early Years and Key Stage One to read using a phonics programme called Read Write Inc (RWI). This allows them to develop word building and decoding skills, becoming confident readers and enthusiastic and talented writers. With this as a foundation, children are then introduced to a wide range of texts –through an 'End Goal' approach to units of work.

Reading

Early Reading


Early Reading is the foundation of skills children need to develop in order to unlock their learning and opportunities ahead of them. Early Reading is not only found within the Nursery and Reception classes, it can also be found in the higher years. But of course our reading journey starts in EYFS.


In Nursery, the children are supported with their Communication and Language with the help of Wellcomm, (a language screening tool). They are exposed to higher-order vocabulary and the application of such words, with high-quality, children’s literature being a part of daily teaching. This is implemented alongside the primary focus on the auditory of sounds- whether that be the sounds they can hear on a busy road, the initial sounds of words, the amount of syllables within a word, rhyming words within a story and so on.


In Reception, the work begun in Nursery is continued in addition to the use of NELI (a language screening tool) to support the Communication and Language skills. Daily phonic lessons which begin by teaching the children single letter sounds, are then consolidated by taking part in ‘Pinny Time’ throughout the day to recap the sounds they have learnt during phonics.


As we move into KS1, the children continue to build on the foundations laid in EYFS. Both Communication and Language and phonics are still a primary focus however, the children in Year 1 and 2 move swiftly onto the digraphs and trigraphs (2 and 3 letter sounds) if these have not been learnt already in Reception. The children also learn to develop their fluency through reading everyday within phonics and fluency sessions, as well as comprehending what they have read.


As the children move into KS2, the children still have the exposure to the skills they have learnt during their previous phonic lessons and continue to build on these through targeted phonic interventions and through daily guided reading and fluency lessons.


As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Early Reading is not confined to the children in EYFS. It is simply the foundation of skills that support our children to become confident and lifelong readers. If the children have gaps in their foundations, then we as a school, provide them with tailored 1:1 or small group support or interventions to close those gaps. Through this, we allow the children to unlock their full potential in all areas of the curriculum and the path that lays ahead of them.


Whole Class Guided Reading


From years 2-6, we follow a whole class guided reading approach as we feel that it allows all of our children to be exposed to a range of different text types and genres, increasing our children’s understanding of texts that focus on different topics and themes while also developing their enthusiasm for reading. Through this approach, the children are taught specific reading skills (using the Reading VIPERS approach to support this) while also providing the children with the opportunities to take part in verbal discussions as well as provide written responses.


Throughout the week, running alongside fluency lessons, the children develop upon their core reading skills that are set out in the National Curriculum with these skills and strategies being built around the teacher reading and choosing high-quality and challenging extracts. The learning objectives for each lesson are the same for all children, with all children having access to the same text, activities and levels of questioning but with differing levels of support provided depending on the need of the child. Through skilful questioning and discussions, teachers support pupils in getting to grips and unpicking new vocabulary and language to develop their understanding of the text.


Reading VIPERS


What are Vipers?

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

VIPERS stands for:


Vocabulary Inference Prediction Explanation Retrieval Sequence or Summarise


The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc. As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions.

They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these which allows for targeted questioning afterwards.


Reading Fluency


Reading fluency is often described as the bridge between word recognition and comprehension. At King Charles, we believe that reading aloud both accurately and at a reasonable pace are important aspects of the reading curriculum. If a child can achieve this, then cognitive space is freed up to allow them to concentrate on the meaning from the text


Children from Year 2-5 take part in reading fluency lessons where the aim is to develop their accuracy, automaticity and prosody (the ability to read in a way that mirrors the sound of natural spoken language). When leading fluency lessons, teachers select and appropriate text and consider concepts and vocabulary that may require explanation. Children are then provided with the opportunity to participate in individual, partner, echo and choral reading to progress and support their development in repeated oral reading.


As the children’s reading fluency increases, the amount of fluency lessons decrease, which is shown through our whole school reading diet.

Writing

Pupils' understanding of the skills they are developing daily and how these build into a bigger picture to enable them to write for specific audiences and purposes is essential to them developing as writers. For this reason, all of our writing genres start with a 'delivery day' that sets the children a task based around a text linked to their thematic topic.

For example, when pupils are learning about The Egyptians in Year 4, their End Goal is to produce a diary from the viewpoint of Howard Carter for display in The British Museum in London. The pupils then begin their learning journey by interrogating good examples of diary extracts to identify structural, word and sentence level features of the text and the impact of using these on the reader. This is known as Phase 1. Once the children know what is needed to produce a good quality diary entry, they are given time to practise using these features in a range of ways and combine them so that they are confident in constructing effective sentences. This is Phase 2. Phase 3 begins when the pupils are ready to apply all of the knowledge and skills of using the features of a personal recount to draft their diary entry from the viewpoint of Howard Carter. They are taught to edit their work and justify their choices of language and sentence construction before producing a final draft which is in the form of the task set at the start of their learning journey.

As a result, our pupils produce high quality, extended pieces of writing that are fit for audience and purpose and are celebrated across the whole school community.

Speaking and Listening

Being able to communicate effectively is essential to all development and particularly for English. For this reason we provide a wide range of opportunities for talk throughout our curriculum. Every class has visit co-ordinators who welcome guests and other adults into their class and share their 'End Goals', learning journeys, targets and achievements with confidence and pride. pupils present their final pieces of work in a range of ways, for example performing a presentation on Darwin, or presenting their balanced discussion about Oliver Cromwell to parliament. Pupils use their work as a basis for developing key skills that will enable them to be confident speakers who communicate effectively and who listen intently. Click on the link to see some of the examples of how our pupils use their speaking and listening skills across the curriculum.