English

Curriculum Intent

The School recognises the integrity of English as a subject as well as it being an essential component of all curriculum areas. We endeavour to provide every child with a wealth of experiences to develop the ability to communicate effectively in speech and writing and to listen with understanding. Reading, in its many forms, is positively promoted through an extensive selection of books and other resource materials, in order to enable children to be enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable readers.  

Curriculum Implementation

The following documents outline texts covered and writing opportunities linked to those texts in each Year group.

Reception Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 1 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 2 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 3 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 4 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 5 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

 Year 6 Reading and Writing Curriculum Overview

Reading

 Reading at DPS Parent Presentation September 2022

Early Reading and Phonics

Essential Letters and Sounds

At Dorridge our chosen phonics programme is Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS). The aim of ELS is ‘Getting all children to read well, quickly’. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words.

Please click below for more information. 

Reading in KS2: Years 3-6

Reading is essential for all of our children to help them become independent life long learners. The stages of the Oxford Reading Tree books are carefully designed to be progressive and, when in KS2, reading is for meaning - not just decoding the text. Parental discussion is essential to deepen the understanding of the texts.

As children enter Year 3, they will continue with their reading record from Key Stage 1. Each child has an individual record for each stage of the reading program and, on completion of a stage, class teachers or English teachers will move children onto the next stage and also give classroom rewards. Children are expected to be more independent in changing their books when completed. Parents can encourage this and also record their reading in their Home School Organiser, which is monitored in school. Oxford Reading Tree books up to Stage 12 are stored in the Year 3 corridor.

After completion of Stage 12, and as they progress through school, children can choose their books from the Year 5 corridor, for Stages 13 to 16, and the school library, for Stages 17 to 20. For these stages, daily reading plus parent signature is still recorded in their organiser and monitored by teachers.

In addition, reading is also recorded in the half termly reading challenges. This ensures that children read a breadth of text types and genres. Each term, Oxford Reading Tree books, library books and books from home are recorded. Teachers may tailor the number of books to pupils’ abilities and completion of the challenge is rewarded with classroom rewards.

The reading challenge is to encourage children to read a wide variety of books from our excellent and well stocked library. Our Year 6 librarians are always happy to recommend new authors to children if they need a change or a challenge!

We welcome in school any parents/grandparents who would like to help with reading both listening and discussing with individuals or small groups. Please let your child’s teacher know if you can give some of your time to help.

Reading at home

We encourage all children to read aloud to an adult and to share books at home regularly. This document has been written in school to provide parents with information and questions to support reading at home.

 Developing Your Child's Reading at Home

You may find it interesting to listen to  Michael Rosen's YouTube tips for reading bedtime stories. Please note that this is a link to YouTube. We take online safety seriously and would not expect children to use YouTube unsupervised.

Recommended Books:

 Book Award Winners 2020-2021 Open University

Books with Hooks

 Books for 5-8 year olds

 Books for  9-12 year olds

Spelling

Tips for helping your child to spell

• Shut their eyes and try to picture the word in their head
• Repeat the words several times over
• Write out the word a few times
• See if the word reminds them of any others which they can spell
• Compare their version with the correct spelling and, if theirs is wrong, concentrate on the bit they got wrong
• If you and they haven’t got access to the correct spelling, write your version down and see if it looks right
• If the word is familiar but spelled in an unusual way (for example, with a silent letter) try deliberately mispronouncing it in accordance with the way it is spelled to get used to the spelling. An example of this is the word "Wednesday".

Handwriting

We use the Penpals Handwriting Scheme in school to introduce the children to forming their letters correctly. It is very important that children are using the correct formation of letters all the time as it can become very difficult for a child to change their formation once they have formed a style.

Please click for more information on our handwriting scheme.  

Guided Reading

Guided reading sessions are part of our daily English lessons. A teacher will share a text and scaffold discussion with a group of similar ability children. High quality guided reading has many benefits, as explained in this document from Oxford University Press.

Teaching the Reading Curriculum: The role of high quality guided reading

Recommended websites

The following websites are recommended in supporting children in all areas of English. Please note that, as these are external sites, it is possible that they may change or disappear without warning!

Random House Publishers

Poetry Archive

Children's poetry

 Love Reading for Kids - recommended reads, good for finding new authors

 ICTgames.com - some useful games for English and Maths, including some phonics and spelling activities

 Oxford Owl

 CrickWeb literacy - sections for Early Years and KS1..

 Storynory - please encourage your children to listen to such stories at home.