English
Early Reading
At St William of Perth we placed a very high importance on developing children's early reading skills. We do this by providing focused daily small group work which allows our children to develop confidence while having a high level of structured adult support. In our school we use the Read Write Inc phonic scheme developed by Ruth Miskin to provide a consistent whole school approach to the teaching of reading, writing and spelling.This programme provides a systematic approach to teaching the sounds that we use to read and write words in English, as well as providing pupils with the skills to read and write words that can’t be broken into phonic sounds (words like ‘said’ and ‘they’). If you click on the Read, Write Inc logo below you can access a wealth of resources to support your child's reading at home.
Year Group Reading Lists
We have also devised suggested reading lists to support your child's home reading. Click on the links below to access the suggested reading list for each Year group.
English in Key Stage Two
In key stage two, children's Literacy lessons are mainly delivered using the Power of Reading scheme which uses whole texts as the basis of all taught sessions. Through these texts, children will develop not only their reading and comprehension skills but also extended, creative writing and Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling skills.
All books used are high quality, CLPE assured texts and promote a deep and life long love of reading and learning.
An emphasis on a high standard of presentation and the use of a neat cursive style is championed throughout the school. The correct pencil grip is encouraged from EYFS. Knowledge of letter strings is taught through handwriting, building up muscle memory. Teachers model the cursive handwriting at all times and handwriting forms a central part of displays around the school.
English Curriculum
Click on the link below to find out the objectives that will be covered in each year group.
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar
Grammar and punctuation is taught as a modular system and skills build progressively. Teachers model the writing to demonstrate what a ‘good’ piece of work looks like, scaffolding pupil’s writing. Through an integrated approach grammar skills are taught within the focus genre and text and supported through references within reading, including guided reading.
Grammatical terminology (e.g. adverbs, subordinate clauses, noun phrases etc.) is taught explicitly enabling children to be able to identify them and refer to them in their own writing. An idea of the expected progression from year to year can be found for your child’s year by using the following link click here. By definition, these grids provide only a generalisation and your child may be working above or below this level.
Resources to support learning
If this section you will find a number of resources which you may find helpful in supporting your child's literacy development.
Standard English - Guidance for Parents
In this section you will be able to download our parent PowerPoint presentation explaining about common misconceptions when using standard English and common grammatical errors. Click on the link below to access the presentation.