Reading

Children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 follow the Read Write Inc programme for phonics. This synthetic, structural programme teaches children to read by progressively learning the phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) which make up the English language. For more information, please visit our Phonics Page. 

After children have completed the Read Write inc programme in Year 2, we follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme Pathways to Read. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for reading. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.  

We deliver three whole-class reading lessons per week from years 2–6, which include bespoke reading for every pupil at least once a week as well as individual reading. For pupils still needing support with phonics from years 2-6, we provide an individual reading programme that has phonically decodable texts at the heart of it. In our shared reads, there is a clear teaching focus with the opportunity to master key reading skills in each session. There are follow-on reading tasks to enable pupils to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.

Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.   

You will find the end-of-year expectations for reading for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.

We also use Pathways to Write to drive our writing curriculum. This aligns with Pathways to Read, ensuring meaningful links for our pupils with texts and topics that are used across Literacy, Humanities and Science.

Accelerated Reader

To develop a love of reading in our school, St Margaret's has implemented Accelerated Reader, a reading programme which closely monitors children’s reading performance, their progress and informs teachers of any targets or areas to focus on. This is child-led; children can choose the book they wish to read, depending on the ZPD level set by the STAR reading test. These tests are to be completed by every child every term and the first week of school in September.

myON® Reader is a student-centered, personalised literacy environment that gives students access to more than 6,000 enhanced digital books from home and in school. Titles are dynamically matched to each individual student’s interests, year and reading level. Combined with a suite of close reading tools and embedded support, myON Reader fosters student engagement and achievement.

Storytime

St Margaret’s has a uniquely diverse community. Therefore, when developing this storytime overview, the books selected to feature aim to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity within our world with the primary aim to empower and educate our pupils. In addition, book titles have been selected through extensive research involving educational specialists, experts such as Pie Corbett, The National Literacy Trust and prestigious children’s book award nominations. Furthermore, staff and pupil views have also been listened to, which allowed all stakeholders to share their views and be a part of the process, thus ensuring the titles are reflective of the current school community as well as increasing excitement and enjoyment of reading. 

Other aspects have also been taken into consideration when selecting titles, such as books that will encourage and enthuse pupils of different genders, books that are rich in vocabulary to extend pupils' vocabulary, including those who speak English as an additional language, books with complex concepts to increase pupils' experiences and knowledge, and thought-provoking picture books for pupils who are visual learners to generate curiosity and discussion. 

Writing

In Nursery and Reception, we have our own bespoke curriculum for Literacy. This curriculum is based on the Literacy Early Learning Goals and is taught through a range of engaging texts which link to our half-term themes. The overview of texts and objectives are below.

In Years 1-6 we follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided.  Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.   

You will find the end-of-year expectations for writing, reading and spoken language for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further details on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.

Spelling

We follow a mastery approach to the teaching of spelling through the programme ‘Pathways to Spell’. It is a programme designed to deliver the statutory content of the Primary National Curriculum for spelling in key stages 1 and 2. Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proof-reading, the programme aims to develop children as proficient spellers.

You will find the end-of-year expectations for spelling for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further details on the skills that your children are learning on a weekly basis, please contact your class teacher.