English

Reading at St Lewis'...

We believe that reading is the key to learning and the foundations of all we do at St Lewis'. It is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to create life-long responsible readers through creating a positive and active reading culture and climate throughout our school. Reading is a channel in which children are given the opportunity to make connections, expand knowledge, collect language (words and phrases) to live within and experience the beauty of the ever changing world around them.

Reading is a vehicle in which children can explore the curriculum, the world around them and delve into the deepest depths of their own curiosity and wonder. The impact of a positive reading culture allows our children to experience the true value of the spoken and written word both within the classroom and the wider community. We aim to inspire all children to become responsible, well-read fluent readers. It is through our rigorous reading curriculum that is established in our early years setting and continues to build every year stretching beyond their primary phase.

Phonic strategies are introduced in our nursery setting when the children are ready to build on their oral story telling and rhyme. When ready they are introduced to the sounds that create written words. This is developed throughout school as children are grouped according to their phonic ability. Books that they take home also mirror their phonic development in addition to pleasure reads (real books) to share as a family. Daily reading for children using Monster Phonics is an opportunity to explore high quality texts , developing stamina, fluency and their knowledge of vocabulary . It is through these sessions that children will really develop their knowledge and confidence of the different aspects of the reading domain. Home readers are closely matched to their reading ability. Thus creating confident, responsible life long readers.

Reading is always something that we celebrate at St Lewis' especially the oral expression of reading. We enjoy sharing this passion with the children and our community through our weekly awards, library prefects and reading ambassadors . Wider reading experiences also include annual celebration of World Book day and sessions with an author and illustrator allowing the children to develop their passion and knowledge of books even further.

Writing at St Lewis'...

We have carefully selected high quality texts that give our children the inspiration and motivation to write for different purposes through a genre rich curriculum. Writing at St Lewis' is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to create life-long, responsible and skilled writers that are ready to tackle the written world. We aim is to ensure that when our children leave this primary phase they are fully equipped in their ability to write for many different purposes understanding the importance of their reader whether they are writing to entertain, inform or debate they will have the correct skill set to do so.

We aim to inspire all children to become responsible, highly skilled and fluent writers. It is through our rigorous genre led Pathways to Write curriculum that is established in our early years setting and continues to build every year stretching beyond their primary phase. Our genre led writing is inspired through the use of high quality picture books, videos, images and extracts. The children are guided through their writing journey through exploration of vocabulary, writing styles (grammar) and genre specific features (structure). The high quality modelling of writing allows the children to be exposed to the inner thought process of the writing mind and this is used to model both the planning and application side of writing. The children will also be exposed to the high quality vocabulary that lies within their class reading text allowing the connections between reading and writing.