EYFS and KS1

At Palace Wood we know how important it is for teachers and parents to work together to give your child the best start. Reading together at home is one of the simplest and most important ways in which you can help your child. To support your child in becoming an effective and confident reader we hope to work with you on the first step which is to develop their knowledge of phonics and enable them to decode the different words they may come across. 

We follow the Read, Write, Inc phonics programme.

Read Write Inc.

Read Write Inc. Phonics, Literacy & Language, Fresh Start and Spelling are highly successful literacy programmes for 4-13 year-olds created by Ruth Miskin and published by Oxford University Press. The training and support from Ruth Miskin Training, rated Outstanding by the Department for Education, ensure the programmes have the best chance of success in schools.

The Read Write Inc. programmes are carefully matched to the new curriculum, giving your children the best chance of success in the national tests. They show teachers, teaching assistants and parents step-by-step how to teach all children to become fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers.

Our School Uses

• Read Write Inc. Phonics for our children in Reception to Year 2 and from September 2015 for our children in Years 3 and 4 who need to catch up.
• Spelling Shed for our children in Years 3 to 6.

Read Write Inc. Phonics is used by over a quarter of the UK’s primary schools. It is a comprehensive literacy programme, weaving decoding, comprehension, writing and spelling together seamlessly. Ruth Miskin developed the programme during her time as a headteacher in Tower Hamlets. She believes that in order for a school to be successful, every headteacher needs to adopt a consistent whole-school approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling. Fidelity to the teaching programme, rigorous assessment, tracking and one-to-one tutoring ensure that schools guarantee progress for every child. For information and tutorials on how to support your child learning click here

Read Write Inc. Fresh Start raises attainment rapidly in reading and writing. The programme boosts children’s confidence by matching what they read with the sounds they know using specially created age-appropriate texts and anthologies. Read Write Inc. Fresh Start provides clear and cumulative writing activities to build vocabulary and punctuation. For more information click here

Children complete a national Phonics' Screen Check' in June of Year 1.

Spelling

Learning to spell has strong links with reading and writing. In reading, the children’s knowledge of the relationship between letters and sounds sets the foundations for them as spellers. Spelling is also a significant aspect of the writing element within the curriculum. If we want children to become confident writers, a strong understanding of spelling and spelling patterns is crucial. As stated in the National Curriculum (2014), it states that ‘Writing down ideas fluently depends on effective transcription: that is, on spelling quickly and accurately through knowing the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics) and understanding the morphology (word structure) and orthography (spelling structure) of words.’

At Palace Wood Primary, we have adopted a whole-school approach to spelling that builds as the children move through the school. We follow the scheme set out by the ‘Spelling Shed’, which gives complete coverage of the spelling standards set out in the National Curriculum.

The teaching and practice of spelling at school can also be extended to home via the Spelling Shed app/website, of which all our pupils have been given their own unique login for.

Our whole-school spelling scheme sets out a weekly focus with word lists and activities. This is then put together by the class teacher as an ’assignment’ for pupils to complete at home through the app/website. We believe this continued and regular targeted practice on an engaging platform will increase the children’s confidence and capability as spellers. Your child’s teacher will monitor their progress.

The spelling focus games played at home offer different degrees of support in the form of difficulty modes; Easy, Medium, Hard and Extreme. Higher levels allow a higher score to be achieved, but children can practise as much as they like on lower levels before trying to gain high scores.

Additionally, class teachers may set topical words to practise or any words relevant for revision of previous rules.

At the end of KS1 and KS2, pupils will sit a Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling test to check their understanding of the spelling rules and patterns learned.

For further information about Spelling Shed, please visit their site: www.spellingshed.com