Literacy Plans
Literacy is taught as a discreet subject daily in a dedicated Literacy lesson. Where ever possible we make links to other areas of the curriculum in particular through our themes. This is to help children apply the skills they are learning in meaningful contexts and also to draw on the content of our themes as a stimulus for reading and writing. In Key Stage 1 (and for those children who need it in Key Stage 2) there is daily phonics teaching. Phonics is taught in KS1 using the DfE validated 'Sounds-Write' programme. This is a new approach in our school, which will also be phased into our approach to teaching spelling in KS2. 'Literacy Skills' (mainly grammar skills) are also timetabled in KS2. All children take part in a weekly Guided Reading session with their class teacher and will do other reading related activities while other groups have their session. In addition to this children are also heard to read individually either daily or 3 times weekly depending on need, until they are fluent. At this point they will have more freedom to choose books, including from our new libraries, and they will discuss their individual reading with the teacher from time to time. Our core reading scheme is Phonics Books: Dandelion readers. All books are phonetically decodeable to enable children to practise their reading of previously taught sounds in a book they can take home and bring into school, daily. We cannot emphasise enough how vital and wonderful it is to share reading at home regularly (every day!) with your children. Each child is also given a 'reading record' book, which is used to keep a record of the books they are reading and comments about their reading between school and home. It is an expectation that children read a miniumum of three times per week at home. Books and reading records must be brought into school every day.
National Curriculum documents for reading in each year-group can be found below:
Reading guidance for parents
How is early reading taught at BSM? We follow the Sounds-Write approach to teaching reading and spelling. We have put together some presentation slides, which outline our approach to reading: Reading information for parents. If you would like to hear a guided explanation of the presentation, please click here.
Getting our parents invovled in the teaching of reading is very important to us. Please do not hesitaie to come and chat with the staff team, should you have any questions or want any advice on how to support your child with thier reading. Here are some futher support aids for parents about teaching and supporting early reading: Sounds-Write parents leaflet, How to pronounce sounds precisely, What is Sounds-Write (video).
If you are interested in taking a short on-line course for parents, click here: Help your child to read and write, part 1 (upon completion of part 1, you will have an option to continue on to part 2!)
Please have a look at this powerpoint for information about how to help your child with reading, at Key Stage 2: /leeds/primary/burleystmatthias/arenas/websitecontentcommunity/web/bsmreadingguide(1).pptx
There are more links to support reading on our links page.