At Westcliff Primary Academy, we pride ourselves in developing a whole school reading culture. We value reading as a key life skill, and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers in order to navigate their way around the world. It is our belief that our pupils’ successes will be underpinned by their ability to read fluently and skilfully whilst understanding the text read with increasing complexity. We want to develop our children’s imagination to open up a treasure house of wonder and joy for curious young minds.
English Curriculum
Reading to Learn at Westcliff Primary Academy
We aim to provide children with a language rich environment, high quality texts and inspiring learning opportunities. To ensure a holistic approach to the teaching of reading, we implement the following:
Children take part in daily reading lessons using the VIPERS reading skills. VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts. The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading. Staff also ensure that the mechanics of reading: decoding, fluency, prosody permeate each reading lesson.
VIPERS stands for:
Vocabulary
Inference
Prediction
Explanation
Retrieval
Sequence or Summarise
We are fortunate enough to have a wide range of reading books in our school which are continually updated.
Our Reading Spine
At Westcliff, our aim is to ensure that by the time children leave us to begin secondary school, they are competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader. To ensure this takes place we have a Reading Spine. To view our Reading Spine, please click below.
Our Reading Spine is a core of books that create a living library inside a child’s mind. It is a store of classics and essential reads that help children to engage at a deeper level and enter the world of the story. The best of children's literature operates on many different levels and can engage readers in a myriad of ways.
Each year group has a set of core books to build a common canon of stories that will enhance imagination and equip the children with a range of vocabulary. To supplement the reading spine, every topic has a selection of key texts with a range of nonfiction and additional fiction books. We also have a variety of poetry to further enhance our reading curriculum.
Our Reading Spine will ensure that each child is able to:
• Gain a life-long enjoyment of reading and books;
• Read accurately, fluently and with understanding;
• Apply a knowledge of structured synthetic phonics in order to decode unfamiliar words with increasing accuracy and speed;
• Be able to read with expression, clarity and confidence;
• Develop a good linguistic knowledge of vocabulary and grammar;
• Read and respond to a wide range of different types of texts;
• Develop a deeper level of emotional intelligence and empathy; and
• Read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education and beyond.
Each classroom will have:
• An engaging reading corner, to foster an environment with reading at the heart of learning. The reading corner will consist of a selection of books written by a variety of authors.
• A selection of books which are directly linked to the curriculum areas that they are focusing on. This offers the opportunities for the children to apply their reading skills across the curriculum.
• Daily novel time. Children are read to daily by their class teacher. The class novels are read together with the children; this also provides an opportunity for the children to read aloud to their peers.
• The opportunity to visit the school library on a weekly basis. Children choose a book and have the option to change this book weekly or when they have read to the end of the story, should they need a longer period of time. Children may recommend books to each other or it may be a class recommendation.
Reading for Pleasure at Westcliff Primary Academy
Reading for Pleasure is the entitlement of every child. We feel that embedding a love of reading in our classrooms, can be transformative to our pupils’ academic success. Our weekly library slots enable the children to select books of their choice, books that they want to read for pleasure.
• ‘Reading for pleasure has many non-literacy benefits and can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and improve wellbeing throughout life’ (The Reading Agency 2015).
• ‘Reading for pleasure has social benefits as well and can make people feel more connected to the wider community. Reading increases a person’s understanding of their own identity, improves empathy and gives them an insight into the world view of others’ (The Reading Agency 2015).
• ‘Students who read for pleasure make significantly more progress in vocabulary, spelling and maths than children who read very little’ (Sullivan and Brown 2013).
Writing at Westcliff Primary Academy
At Westcliff Primary Academy, we want our pupils to become confident, proficient and enthusiastic writers who have a genuine love of writing; we want our pupils to be poised in their use of writing to express themselves and communicate with others. Above all, we want our pupils to take pride in their work and succeed!
We use the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach to enable our children to write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes, internalising the language structures needed across a range of text types such as: explanations, instructions, reports, balanced arguments, stories and poems. This is a creative and rigorous approach developed by the author Pie Corbett and is fundamentally based on the key principles of how children learn. Talk for Writing allows our children to imitate the key language patterns they need for a particular text type orally, through engaging activities that help them to rehearse the text, followed by shared writing opportunities to model how to craft their writing. They learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and present their work and we give our children the chance to reflect on their own and others’ writing and evaluate its success. Throughout school, our children are encouraged to write in a neat, legible style using a cursive script. We believe that writing is an important life skill and we want to enable our children to communicate effectively and creatively using written language. We equip our pupils’ with the knowledge, passion and enthusiasm to be successful life-long writers.
In Early Years children are encouraged to mark make and write using a variety of writing resources in a purposeful manner; for example writing a shopping list in a home corner role play setting or creating an invitation to a party that they can send to a friend.
In Key Stage One the focus is on developing phonics and using the grapheme correspondence to begin to write simple sentences. ‘Talk for Writing’ is used to support children to truly immerse themselves in the planning and writing process. Handwriting is a regular focus within lessons and children progress to cursive writing towards the end of this key stage.
Speaking and Listening at Westcliff Primary Academy
We believe that talking is fundamental to learning. All children take part in a daily vocabulary session, with interactive and visual support through Clicker (where necessary). Pupils are encouraged to speak confidently and with expression in order to share their ideas and opinions. At Westcliff, pupils are given opportunities in all areas of the curriculum to develop their speaking and listening skills, through paired, group or whole class discussions. Therefore, role play, small world and drama activities are intrinsic elements of speaking and listening across the school. A vast range of staff have received Elkan training to further support and develop speech and language across the curriculum.
Vocabulary at Westcliff Primary Academy
At Westcliff, we strive to ensure that all of our pupils have the cultural literacy that they need to be successful throughout their lives. We believe that vocabulary is imperative to this future success.
Vocabulary is also a strong indicator or reading success (National Literacy Trust, 2017). We also know that a good understanding of a wide range of vocabulary supports success across the whole national curriculum. Therefore all children take part in a daily vocabulary “Word of the Day” session, with interactive and visual support through Clicker (where necessary). Pupils are also regularly taught new vocabulary in all areas of the curriculum.
Word levels are based on frequency, complexity, and meaning. As teachers, we know that a robust vocabulary supports reading comprehension and reinforces understanding of new and difficult texts. Using a tiered approach to vocabulary instruction assists in the development of language acquisition and promotes a strong foundation for literacy across year groups and subject specific content areas.
Teachers, along side subject leaders, carefully select subject specific vocabulary they will teach across the curriculum. Subject specific vocabulary is embedded across the curriculum. Contextual learning helps children to understand new vocabulary and supports pupils and their ability to transfer these into all areas of the curriculum. Staff model the use of higher-level vocabulary within their speech; expanding children’s vocabulary is a key focus from EYFS onwards.
TIER 1 - Tier one words are high frequency words, used over and over again in the course of general conversation. Because tier one words are basic everyday words, most of them are learned through oral communication with family members, peers, or teachers.
TIER 2 - Tier two words are also referred to as academic vocabulary. They are cross-curricular words, appearing frequently across topics and content areas. Tier two words are not common words used in conversation, making them ideal candidates for direct instruction. Examples of tier two words include complex, analyse, restrict, ultimate, and foundation. In addition to being cross-curricular, tier two words often have multiple meanings, making them an integral component of reading comprehension. The more students learn high utility (tier two) words, the better they will be able to comprehend text that contains those words.
TIER 3 - Tier three words consists of low frequency words that occur in specific domains. Tier three words are central to understanding concepts within various academic subjects and should be integrated into content instruction. Examples of tier three words include molecule, tundra, and legislature.