At James Cambell, our aim is to develop children’s writing and reading skills. We endeavour to instil a life-long love of reading within all children, an appreciation of books and the endless experience and opportunities that books can offer. A love of reading is at the heart of our school values and it helps our children to become receptive writers.
Within the Early Years and Key Stage 1 classes, the teaching of phonics follows the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. This is how we teach our children to read, write and spell. In year 2, children progress onto using key texts that are used to underpin writing units whereby themes, author intent and language are discussed, allowing children to understand the process of writing. This is then developed through oral rehearsal, unpicking good examples and shared writing, which aids children with their own innovation and composition. Reading in Year 2 is delivered through the guided reading approach, this offers children an array of texts where they explore a range of genres that allow them to have a wide-ranging experience of literature.
In Key Stage 2, the Literacy and Language programme is used to teach our children to be quality writers. Pupils are exposed to many forms of writing and are given opportunities to write for a variety of audiences and purposes. To teach reading, we have adopted the Destination Reader approach. Our children are absorbed into a rich reading environment by exploring a wide range of quality texts to support word recognition, comprehension skills and vocabulary acquisition. Our reading lessons encourage the development of reading comprehension, engagement in the text is promoted through ‘book talk’ and response activities including, written activities, artwork, story mapping, drama and questioning to support understanding.
Reading for pleasure occurs daily in classes, this is led by the teacher but children’s opinions and recommendations shape the books they choose. This allows children to hear modelled reading and teacher enthusiasm brings a range of texts to life.
At James Cambell we understand the importance of linking learning in school to home. We offer all children the opportunity to reinforce and develop their learning within English. We use Oxford Reading Owl to support our Early Years and Key Stage 1 children develop their reading skills.
Throughout the school, we use Bug Club so all children have a vast online library of eBooks that provide them with a wide range of texts linked to their reading level and interests. Bug Club supports decoding and each book contains questions which support the development of comprehension, layout, inference and vocabulary.