Primary English

At Croft Community School, we follow National Curriculum objectives for English. We believe that literacy and communication are key life skills. Through the English curriculum, we will help children develop the skills and knowledge which will enable them to communicate through spoken and written language. We want children to enjoy and appreciate literature and its rich variety.

We teach English through the main elements of:

• spoken word
• reading – word reading & comprehension
• writing – transcription (spelling & handwriting) & composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing)
• spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation

Reading

At Croft Community School, we develop children’s reading through various approaches and activities. We incorporate visual & pictorial discussions and sensory experiences, along with phonics and word recognition skills to approach reading. We provide good quality texts to fully engage children, which are linked to topics from the International Primary Curriculum.

Our aims are:

To enable children to read to the best of their ability.
To develop an interest in books and reading for pleasure, including enjoying a wide variety of texts such as fiction, non-fiction and poetry
To ensure children can read with confidence, accuracy, fluency and understanding
To develop independent readers, using these skills across the curriculum
To use books as a start for their own imagination and creativity
To prepare children for the next stage in their education.

Celebrations such as World Book Day are actively promoted in school to encourage a reading environment.

Reading Schemes
We use a range of reading schemes including Oxford Reading Tree, Storyworld and Project X to support the development of our children’s reading skills. Books appropriate to the child’s ability are selected to ensure success and progression. All children are given a reading book at an appropriate level to take home each week.

Phonics

At Croft Community School, we follow the Read, Write, Inc. synthetic phonics programme developed by Ruth Miskin.  The Read, Write, Inc. programme is proven to develop: “fluent, enthusiastic readers; deep comprehension of texts; confident speakers; and keen writers.’ The skills children learn in their phonics sessions aid their development in other subject areas. With a little help from ‘Fred the Frog’, children learn how to decode words using phonic knowledge, becoming confident readers.

For more information, visit our ‘Read, Write, Inc.’ page.