English and Literacy

Reading at The Oaks 

At The Oaks we believe that the ability to read is the most important skill we can teach our pupils to enable them to access and understand all areas of the curriculum and their future life.  Therefore, we prioritise learning to read to make sure that all of our children develop a love of reading. 

At The Oaks, we teach reading through three different strands:  

• Phonics (Read Write Inc), 

• Comprehension and fluency (Whole class reading) and 

• Reading for pleasure (Accelerated Reader)  

During the school day, time is devoted to these three strands of reading to ensure that our children become fluent, accurate and confident readers.  To ensure our children meet a wealth of diverse texts and authors, the books we read are mapped out on our reading spine so by the time our pupils leave year 6, they have had the very best possible start to their reading journey. 

Our teachers also read high-quality texts to the children every day so that they have the opportunity to listen to wonderful stories as well as read them for themselves. 

Reading provides a key component for our whole curriculum and intends to ensure that all children have high standards of language and literacy by a strong command of the spoken word, to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

We want all pupils to:

• Become fluent readers that read easily, fluently and with good understanding;

• Develop habits of reading widely and often for both pleasure and information;

• Acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading and the spoken language;

• Appreciate a rich and varied literary heritage;

• Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.

Reading Implementation

Learning to read is the most important thing the children will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy and time as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.  We want your child to love reading and to want to read for themselves.  

We are a dedicated ‘Read Write Inc’ (RWI) school and believe phonics are the vital foundations for our children in becoming successful readers.  Our ‘new to reading’ children follow the ‘Read Write Inc’ scheme when learning to read. This scheme places an emphasis on developing a strong understanding of synthetic phonics as well as reading for meaning, so children quickly develop understanding of texts alongside their ability to decode words. 

Parent-FAQs for RWI.pdf

We believe developing children’s fluency and comprehension skills is vital to become a successful reader.  Once children have become fluent readers, they move from phonic level books onto Accelerated Reader books.  To start, pupils take an online comprehension test.  This tells us the pupil’s reading age and gives them a reading range (ZPD). 

The ZPD identifies the range in which the children can choose a book from.

Once they have completed the book, the pupils then take an online quiz that checks how well they have understood it. 

Children have 20 minutes of Accelerated Reader reading time each day.  They are also encouraged to read every night at home for at least 20 minutes. 

We believe that it is important to expose our children to a rich and wide variety of books that promote children’s passion for reading for pleasure.  We follow the TKAT’s whole class reading spine to develop children’ ability to become skillful and fluent readers by encouraging them to think critically and question concepts while reading. 

Discussion about high quality literature is expected from the beginning of their school life at The Oaks, with teachers ensuring that this is always to a high standard.  We expect our staff to model high expectations of discussion, an enjoyment and pleasure in reading and a desire to learn and experiment with new and unfamiliar vocabulary. 

During whole class reading sessions, children will be taught several different aspects of reading:

• Vocabulary - in order to fully comprehend a text, children will need to have a secure understanding of at least 95% of the vocabulary within it.  Every lesson starts with a quick activity which enables them to explore identified, unfamiliar vocabulary. Teachers will tell the children the meaning of the vocabulary, put the word into a child-friendly definition and use it in different familiar contexts.  It is also expected that teachers will model how to use any unfamiliar words during shared writing.  

• Prior knowledge - accessing children’s prior knowledge or giving the children the prior knowledge needed to understand a text is paramount in developing children as readers.  Without this, children will struggle to make connections and understand the context in which characters and stories are set.  When introducing a new text, fiction or nonfiction, teachers will provide the background information needed for children to be able to fully comprehend. 

• Toolkits - children analyse the text they are reading alongside other models of excellence (extracts from a wide range of books) in order to understand how an author creates a particular effect on the reader.  Tools are written in a child-friendly way and exemplified so that they can then choose which tool to use in their writing as well as building up a bank of language that they want to use to make a reader feel a certain way. 

• Booktalk - book talk is essential to ensure that our children take part in open discussions about high quality, worthwhile texts; subsequently developing their ability to read critically and deepen their understanding and therefore appreciation of a text.  Children are encouraged to build and challenge their peer’s ideas, using evidence from the text to support their opinions.  

• Fluency - fluency is defined as the speed at which a reader can decode a text (DFE).  The fluency part of the reading cycle enables children to hear an expert model using correct prosody, accuracy and automaticity.  Children learn how to echo and choral read, rehearse text with a partner and then use their fluency to aid their comprehension. 

• Silent and sustained reading - during the week, there are daily opportunities for children to read independently.  Children have a text (based on their ZPD level) to allow them the time to independently apply the reading tools taught to them during whole class reading. During this time, teachers listen to children read and record their progress on assessment records. 

TKAT Reading Spine 

Progression in Comprehension

Progression in Word Reading

Sentence Stem Progression

Reading on a page at The Oaks 

Writing at The Oaks 

At The Oaks, we are passionate about English as we believe that it lies at the heart of the curriculum.  We know that the link between writing and reading is key - good writers are good readers. 

We encourage our children to become curious about their own and others’ writing, exploring a range of authors, poets and their peers.  

Along their writing journey, we encourage children to be courageous in developing their own ideas and to become an independent writer. 

Our curriculum aim is for all children to leave The Oaks being able to:

• Confidently communicate and express their ideas in writing and speech;

• Use a rich and wide vocabulary;

• Write clearly, accurately and coherently;

• Write for a range of different purposes (including creatively and informatively). 

We follow the Talk for Writing (T4W) programme, developed by the author Pie Corbett.  Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need for a particular topic orally before they try reading and analysing it.  Through fun activities and oral rehearsal, children internalise the text structures and language patterns before putting pencil to paper.  This enables the children to choose the writer tools they want to use in their independent writing which, in turn, helps them to develop their own literacy voice. 

Talk for Writing has 3 stages: Imitation, Innovation and Invention, with the aim of the whole process being to create independent, enthusiastic authors.  

Imitation Stage:

In the initial imitation stage of Talk for Writing, children internalise a text off by heart using a text map, actions and expressions.  They may begin a writing unit with a creative context, e.g. a ‘hook’ to engage the children. Children hear the text and say it for themselves before they see it written down. 

Once the children know the text well, they ‘read it as a reader’.  This involves in depth discussions around the text, focussing heavily on vocabulary and oral comprehension.  They are encouraged to express opinions on their likes and dislikes regarding the text in order to improve their own writing.  Further models are also shared with the children so they broaden their frame of reference through investigating how other writers tackle this type of writing.  

The next stage is ‘read as a writer’ which involves identifying the underlying patterns of both the overall organisation, as well as how the writer creates different effects.  The text is ‘boxed up’ (broken down into key sections) so that the structure becomes obvious and can be used as a basic planner.   Writing toolkits are also created and these contain transferable strategies and techniques.  During this stage, children are not just bathed in language but specifically notice, rehearse and learn language patterns needed to write powerfully.  
 

Innovation Stage:

During the second stage, innovation, teachers provide the children with shared writing opportunities to show the children how to craft writing using a clear approach with vocabulary and language structures.   This helps them to choose the writer’s tools they want to use when it comes to the invention stage, supporting them to develop their own writer’s voice.   

Invention Stage:

Invention is the final stage of the Talk for Writing process where the children apply what they have learnt throughout the unit and independently write their own piece of writing based on the genre of writing. 
 

TKAT Writing Spine

Progression in writing 

Writing on a page