Reading is a fundamental skill that enriches the rest of our Curriculum. All Saints Multi Academy Trust Birmingham is committed to making achievement in reading a reality for all pupils. We teach reading skills in different 'subject areas' as well as showing our commitment to reading by teaching focussed reading lessons every single morning of the week. We recognise that phonics play an important part in teaching children how to read so we use the 'Letters and Sounds' resource to support early readers. The specific teaching of comprehension skills is also woven throughout our reading lessons. Teaching children to gain understanding from a text is a crucial part of developing reading skills further. Teachers choose from a variety of texts and genres to give children a wide experience of reading.
We believe that every child is a writer and teachers are there to help nurture, scaffold and develop their writing skills. Talk for Writing is a key element of the writing process which involves children from all ages.
This includes book talk, writer talk, story-telling, word and language games, role-play and drama. The 'talk' element helps the children to develop the language and vocabulary to use in their writing. Children are taught the key features of different genres and text types and use authors writing to help structure their own writing before launching into writing independently. Story planning is also another feature which allows the children's imagination to flourish and use known stories to generate ideas to enable them to write their own version.
We have a high emphasis on making our writing lessons fun and purposeful as well as teaching specific spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. As a school, we enjoy spending time each Friday doing a 'Big Write' in every class. This is a chance for every child to do a piece of independent writing and show off the Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (VCOP) they have learnt throughout the week.