English
Reading and writing are the backbone of learning, giving children the ability to access a whole world of knowledge.
All children at Tenacres are encouraged to develop and apply their literacy skills across the curriculum, with carefully chosen texts being at the heart of topics.
Oracy skills are a key element of our curriculum as we nurture our children to become effective and confident communicators in their learning journey.
We love to read!
Reading
Children follow a progressive reading system throughout the school, with books that closely match their phonics knowledge in the early years, later progressing to language rich texts that support and extend children’s skills. In addition to individual reading, we also use guided reading to develop comprehension and inference skills within a group or whole class work.
Our Tenacres library is at the heart of our school both in its physical position but also our ethos . Children visit on a weekly basis to choose a book to share at home and encourage reading for pleasure.
Each child is given a Tenacres Home School Diary which includes pages for reading records. In here, parents, pupils and teachers can comment on a child’s particular efforts and achievements within the books and texts they are reading. The overall progress of children is carefully monitored by their teacher.
Also see: Phonics Progression for Reading Bands
Phonics
In Reception and Year 1, all our children receive daily phonics sessions to build the essential skills for reading and writing.
Key skills include:
- Letter sound recognition
- Blending sounds to read
- Segmenting words to spell
- Recognition of key words
This is achieved through our Tenacres Phonics programme which enlists a multi-sensory approach.
We also have phonics programs in place to support children beyond Year 1 who will benefit from them.
Following on from phonics, No-Nonsense Spelling is taught through Years 2-4, continuing to embed spelling rules.
Also see: Phonics Programme
Writing
Through the carefully chosen texts used as reading stimulus in English lessons, our children are exposed to high-quality technical writing and a rich array of language which feeds into their own writing.
Text structure, grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting are taught throughout the school in both designated English lessons and cross-curricular contexts.
Opportunities for writing are prolific, encompassing a vast array of both fiction and non-fiction genres.
Library
Our Tenacres library is well stocked with a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Children visit on a weekly basis to choose books to take home. The library is also used to support teaching of text types in English lessons.