English at Oakwood Avenue
The Teaching of English at Oakwood Avenue
Our aim is that children at Oakwood develop into confident and fluent speakers, readers and writers; these skills will equip them for their future education and life beyond. We teach communication, language, reading and writing across our curriculum as English supports children’s learning in other subjects.
Please see the separate page on reading for more information about our approach to teaching this strand of English.
Speech and language
As a school, we support children’s speech and language development as soon as they join us in our ‘Little Oakies’ or Nursery. Throughout school, speaking and listening activities are planned to develop our children’s understanding of language and their communication skills; news time or role play in the EYFS to debates and presentations in KS2. We work in partnership with the NHS Speech and Language team to deliver support programs to children who need them.
Writing
Writing begins with the marks children make and give meaning to in Nursery. These early attempts at writing are valued and significant as it shows children understand that writing has a purpose and is a form of communication. Through teaching and practise these simple squiggles become letters, words and eventually sentences as children journey through our school and learn to write.
Our English curriculum is centred around high quality experiences, video clips or children’s books which stimulate learning. We strongly believe that inspirational learning happens when it is fun and meaningful so units of work begin with exciting activities and experiences which motivate and ‘hook’ children into the lessons. Opportunities for drama, collaborative work and deliveries of letters or props from the characters in the books continue to make activities engaging.
Teachers plan for reading and writing activities from these texts and experiences teaching grammar which supports writing. The writing activities planned are purposeful, relevant and inspired by the book/experience. These could be letters to characters in the book, a newspaper article about an event in the story, instructions, writing an alternative ending or a similar story, a diary entry, descriptions of characters or settings or information in the form of a report.
Throughout the school, children are taught how to plan their writing. This is through practising saying sentences in EYFS and Key Stage 1 and planning the content of each of their paragraphs in Key Stage 2. The skills of editing and redrafting are developed too through re-reading to check for sense, punctuation and spelling in EYFS and Key Stage 1 and through choosing better vocabulary or changing the structure of sentences in Key Stage 2.
Spelling
In EYFS and Year 1 spelling is taught through phonics lessons where words are sounded out and tricky words are taught which do not follow the phonics rules. We timetable discrete spelling lessons through the rest of school which teach and practise words with similar spelling patterns and common words which do not follow the patterns but children need for their writing (common exception words). Our spelling lessons encourage children to explore and investigate how words are constructed and what they mean. Children practise and use these spellings during the lesson before they are then encouraged to apply them into their writing. Spelling is supported in all lessons where children are writing through spelling mats, posters and logs. We encourage children to ‘have a go’ at spelling a word three ways before deciding themselves which is correct or asking a friend or the teacher. From year 1 children bring spellings home to learn as part of their homework. For ways of supporting spelling at home, please see the spelling tab which will give you some of the methods we use in school. You can also use the ‘Letterjoin’ programme from the handwriting section on an ipad to support spelling practise.
Handwriting
Handwriting begins by developing young children’s physical skills ready for holding a pen correctly. In Little Oakies and Nursery staff plan activities to develop and strengthen muscles from the shoulder down to the fingers. Fine motor control activities enable children to acquire the skills they need to manipulate a pen/pencil/paint brush to make marks in different ways on paper; top to bottom, side to side and round and round. From Reception, children learn to form letters in a cursive style which supports the shift to joined handwriting later. Handwriting lessons focus on elements of letter formation or joining which children need more practise with. Starting letters in the correct place and in the correct direction is very important from the earliest stage so that bad habits are not formed which are difficult to break. We encourage our children to take pride in their work across the curriculum and always write neatly with the correct letter formation. Practising handwriting is something which we encourage children and parents to do at home so please see our tab on handwriting for advice on letter formation and accessing ‘Letterjoin’, an interactive online program which we subscribe to for school and home use.