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At Teynham Primary School, we are committed to delivering an English curriculum that inspires a love of learning while equipping children with essential life skills. These skills are developed across three key areas: Speaking and Listening, Reading, and Writing.
Speaking and Listening:
Spoken language provides a child’s first opportunity to express their thoughts and opinions to others. Therefore, we aim to support, model, and develop rich and ambitious vocabulary to strengthen their communication skills. We maintain high expectations for listening and provide dedicated time for pupils to develop these skills, ensuring all children have the opportunity to grow in confidence and succeed in a range of situations.
Reading:
Children in our school demonstrate a strong enthusiasm for reading, which we actively nurture by promoting reading for pleasure. We encourage our children to become lifelong readers who choose to read because they enjoy it! The foundations of reading begin with phonics, which is taught daily in Reception and Key Stage 1 classes. At Teynham School we use the Little Wandle Letters & Sounds programme to deliver high-quality phonics teaching that supports every child in becoming a confident reader. This systematic and structured approach ensures that children are taught the essential skills of decoding, blending, and segmenting sounds in a clear and engaging way. Daily phonics lessons are carefully planned to build on prior learning, helping pupils to progress at a consistent pace while developing fluency and comprehension. We also provide regular assessment and targeted support, ensuring that all children, regardless of starting point, have the opportunity to succeed and develop a love of reading.
Children are taught the skills of decoding using the process of blending and segmenting. Reading is taught through a structured approach and a rigorous assessment means reading books are matched to the sounds that children know. We use a wide assortment of visually attractive and engaging books from Big Cat Phonics. Children are exposed to the widest possible selection of books with classroom-based reading material, featuring a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts, as well as our well stocked children’s library which features children’s classics, as well as modern authors, specific genres and information texts.
Little Wandle useful links
How to say phase 3 sounds
Reception grapheme information Autumn 1
Reception grapheme information Autumn 2
As children move through the school, they encounter increasingly challenging literature. They continue to build their skills, learning to analyse and evaluate a wide range of texts while improving fluency, deepening comprehension, and broadening their vocabulary. In addition, Accelerated Reader from Key Stage 2 provides staff with the opportunity to track individual reading engagement, assess reading ability and guide pupils to accessible books, as well as further develop reading for pleasure. Please see our dedicated Accelerated Reader page for more information:
We believe that children become confident and fluent readers when both school and home support them. We encourage parents to hear their children read a little every evening and record comments in a reading record.
Links for Parents to Support Reading
10 top tips for parents to support children to read – GOV.UK
Parents and families | National Literacy Trust
How to support your child’s reading at home – BBC Bitesize