Well done Team Langland! We won the NPAT Reading Challenge 2024
- Poetry Slam!
English
At Langland Community School we use the Talk for Writing and Talk for Reading approaches developed by Pie Corbett. The approaches are taught in 3 stages - imitation, innovation, independent application.
Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need for a particular topic orally before they try reading and analysing it. Through the sequence they rehearse the tune of the language they need, followed by shared writing to show them how to craft their writing. This supports our children to then apply the toolkits independently.
Talk for Reading teaches children the skills they need to comprehend. Our curriculum links to the Doug Lemov's five types of texts that children should have access to in order to successfully navigate reading with confidence. The idea is that in each year, a child will cover all 5 plagues of reading so that, by the time they reach Year 6 and beyond, they have a good understanding of all of them and are able to access more complex books expected of them in secondary schools. The 5 plagues of reading are: Archaic, Non-linear, Misleading/Narratively Complex, Symbolic and Resistant.
Handwriting
Handwriting is a physical activity that involves movement and recognition skills that need to be learnt and become part of the automatic cognitive skill set of our pupils. To achieve this, we have chosen the Kinetic Letters handwriting programme. The programme has four threads.
- Making bodies stronger
- Holding the pencil (for speed, comfort and legibility)
- Learning the letters
- Flow and fluency.
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)
SPaG is taught throughout the Talk for Writing process. These skills are discretely taught but in the context of the unit. The ‘Teaching Guide for Progression in Writing’, alongside the National Curriculum objectives on Target Tracker, is used to plan the teaching of grammar and punctuation.
Spelling is taught through the Read Write Inc. Phonics and then, through the RWI Spelling scheme - each week teaches a focused spelling patterns in each year group. In addition to this, the Fast Spelling approach is used as a tool to secure foundational skills in spelling.
Helicopter Stories
Helicopter Stories is a story telling approach that is taught across the Early Years and Key-stage One. It is a strategy that builds on children’s confidence in story-telling, use of vocabulary and the skill of sharing their own ideas with others. Adults gather stories verbally from children at any point during the school day they feel ready to share their ideas, characters and props are highlighted and then the class or group come together to celebrate that child’s story through role play. This approach is also used to support the immersion and innovation stage for key texts during the Talk4Writing process.