At Ardleigh Green Infant School, we want our children to:
- Develop a love of reading;
- Become fluent and expressive readers, in line with age-related expectations set out in the National Curriculum;
- Be exposed to a variety of literature, genres and authors;
- Broaden their vocabulary, aiding their Communication & Language skills, Reading and Writing;
- Write for a range of purposes, including fiction and non-fiction genres.
Our FIRST Ethos in English
- Fit for Life – Children learn to engage with the written world before developing this further in Key Stage Two. Our aim is for all children to become confident speakers, readers and writers, ready to embrace the challenges of the world around them.
- Inspired to Learn – Children learn about key, inspiring authors, the adventures literature can take you on, and the knowledge you can gain from non-fiction texts.
- Ready to Participate – All children participate in systematic processes throughout the school that helps to guide their growth to read and write independently.
- Safe and Secure – We have fostered an ethos of learning through drafting and making mistakes. All progress is celebrated and every journey is supported.
- Trained for Work and Play – Children leave Key Stage One able to use spoken language to express opinions and interests about a range of subjects. They can use these links to read for inspiration and information, and can write to give other insight into their knowledge or imagination.
The Learning Journey
At Ardleigh Green, our vision is ‘Everyone Grows’ and to enable this we have a progressive and ambitious curriculum for all. As the children progress along their learning journey, they acquire new skills, knowledge and understanding to become proficient speakers, readers and writers.
Infant English Learning Journey
Curriculum Planning
EYFS Literacy Text Focus Revised 2023
Yr1 Writing Overview Revised 2023
Yr2 Writing Overview Revised 2023
Reading
At Ardleigh Green Infant School, it is our intention that the children will become enthusiastic and critical readers of a range of genres including stories, poetry, drama, non-fiction and media texts and will develop a real passion for reading. From the earliest days in school our children will gain an understanding of how to communicate their thoughts and emotions confidently using full sentences.
Teachers share high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts with the children to model good intonation and expression, and broaden the children’s vocabulary. High-quality texts are available in classrooms, corridors, and our school library. During our weekly library visits, the children have the opportunity to select free-choice texts to foster a love of reading and challenge themselves with higher-level texts. We introduce a half-termly author focus to raise the profile of classic and modern authors to expand their knowledge and understanding of literature. Additionally, we share a range of authors and key texts inspired by our half-termly themes and communicate this to parents/carers through our Knowledge Booklets.
Reading Scheme
Our reading scheme is consistent, progressive and challenging for our pupils. Children have Jolly Phonics decodable books to develop phonetic knowledge. Children are assisted along their learning journey when appropriate with access to additional texts to develop their sight vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Reading at home
At Ardleigh Green Infant School, we value the importance of developing an effective partnership between school and home, to enable the children to grow and progress on their learning journey. In order to achieve this, our expectation is that children read at least 4 times a week at home and this should be recorded in the children’s homework diaries.
Each week, these signatures are checked by staff and children who have read at least 4 times each week will be rewarded with a dojo point and celebrations in class. The children receive weekly sight words to practise at home to aid fluency and comprehension when reading. Once the children are confident reading these high frequency words, they are encouraged the apply three words to sentences each week. In addition to sharing library books at home, the children also have access to a Reading Eggs account, to further develop their love of reading and support skills progression at home.
We invite parents/carers to Early Reading and Phonics workshops to ensure consistency in our reading approach in school and at home.
Phonics
Phonics forms an integral part of our English teaching. Children learn to say, read and write phonemes/graphemes in short discrete lessons. Children understand that the blending and segmenting of phonemes is a reversible process which supports both their independent reading and writing.
As a school, we follow the Jolly Phonics Scheme, as the songs and actions support pupils’ recall of the 42 sounds necessary for word building and reading, aiding progression. The children begin their phonics journey in Reception, completing Phase 1 sound discrimination and rhyming activities to develop their attention and listening skills. The children are then exposed to initial sounds, which they learn to segment and blend to decode CVC words. As the children become more confident with blending, we introduce digraphs, trigraphs and split digraphs. By the end of Key Stage One, children should have sufficient knowledge of Phases 1 to 5 and be able to apply this to independent reading, spelling and writing. As not all words in the English language comply to the rules of phonics, children continue to learn the high frequency words by sight, and key spelling patterns.
Writing
At Ardleigh Green Infant School, our intention is for all children to become confident, imaginative and articulate writers, with the ability to adapt their writing for a range of purposes and audiences. Our pupils are exposed to a broad range of authors and genres to broaden their vocabulary and develop their knowledge of a variety of writing styles. All pupils have access to high-quality teaching, where key skills are explicitly taught, modelled and scaffolded to meet the needs of individual learners.
Celebrations
We believe in celebrating all children’s successes throughout their learning journey and highlight this through;
- Handwriting Hero
- Child of the Week
- Library Reading Competitions
- Displays celebrating National Events
