All teachers promote literacy not only in the classroom but in a wider range of outdoor learning opportunities, where love for reading is at the heart of everything that we do . The staff at West Yarner/ Seale Hayne are committed to developing literacy and reading skills in all of our pupils, in the belief that it will support their learning and raise standards across the curriculum, because:
- pupils need vocabulary, expression and organisational control to cope with the cognitive demands of subjects;
- reading helps us to learn from sources beyond our immediate experience;
- writing helps us to sustain and order thought;
- language helps us to reflect, revise and evaluate the things we do, and on the things others have said, written or done;
- responding to higher order questions encourages the development of thinking skills and enquiry;
- improving literacy and learning can have an impact on pupils’ self-esteem, on motivation and behaviour. It allows pupils to learn independently.
All schemes of work and most lessons, will include specific English objectives. These objectives will inform the lesson focus. All pupils will have access to a selection of age appropriate books to allow an interest in reading to develop. Read Write Inc and Accelerated Reader are used throughout the school linked to the needs and abilities of the pupils.
All teachers use children’s reading ages and phonics stages to differentiate all learning to cater for the needs of different levels. Daily, our children are given a range of opportunities to engage in reading activities. (e.g independent reading, sharing a class story, comprehension tasks, reading topic texts, etc) We use RWI ( Read Write Inc) to teach phonics across the school.