Reading

At St Michael's, carefully selected class books and texts are chosen for each year group to use as part of their Guided Reading sessions. We follow the St Michael's Approach to Guided Reading in Years 1-6.

Ducklings read a variety of fiction and non-fiction books linked to their weekly themes. The books are used to learn new vocabulary and to develop the children's comprehension of texts. 

Below is a list of recommended reading books per year group. Each class has their own mini library of books as well as use of the school library.

• Free eBooks can also be found at https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
• Listen to books at https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/english-ks1--ks2--ks3-index/zf34gwx
• Free Audible books for kids https://stories.audible.com/discovery
• Listen and read poetry at https://childrens.poetryarchive.org/

Recommended Reading Lists: 

https://www.booksfortopics.com/reception

Reading Support Booklets

The booklets are based around the VIPERS programme that is used in school for Guided Reading and Reading Comprehension

V- Vocabulary

I- Infer

P - Predict

E- Explain

R -Retrieve

S - Summarise

Writing

At St Michael's C of E, we use the St Michael's Approach to Writing for teaching the different genres in Years 1-6.

The genres that each year group will cover are shown in the year group overviews. 

Useful websites to help with writing:

• https://www.literacyshed.com/home.html- fantastic short films to inspire writing 
• https://www.pobble365.com/ - pictures with examples to inspire writing (subscription)
• https://www.onceuponapicture.co.uk/ - pictures to inspire writing
• https://authorfy.com/10minutechallenges/ - hear your favourite authors and accept their challenges
• https://www.storyboardthat.com/ - free resource - create your own digital comic strip

A few Jane Considine Super Stacking Sentences videos - suitable for Key Stage 2

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5kzc2NVikc - The Blue Umbrella
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCuyN3Cg9k - La Luna
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrCVLIAFqfA&t=65s - Soar

Talk for Writing - Pie Corbett

• https://www.talk4writing.com/home-school-units/ - Units of work for KS1 and KS2 to help with writing
• https://www.plazoom.com/resource/free - reading and writing activities from First News

Phonics

In Ducklings, Year 1 and Year 2 we follow the Phonics Shed Scheme of work for the delivery of phonics which is one of the DfE's validated schemes. Children that don't pass the Year 1 phonics screening will join a phonics intervention run by the intervention manager in order to help the children catch up and pass the phonics screening in Year 2. 

This scheme also enables children to access resources and additional assignments at home via the EdShed login page:

• https://play.edshed.com  

Please see the video below which explains how to logon and navigate this resource at home. 

Additional, useful websites to practice phonics

• https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ - Free access at the moment
• https://www.phonicsbloom.com/ - Free access

For children with dyslexia

• https://www.nessy.com/uk/

Spellings

Spellings in Ducklings and Year 1 are closely linked to their phonics teaching and high frequency words and common exception words. 

At St Michael's C of E Primary School, we follow Jane Considine 'The Spelling Book' from Year 2 to Year 6. Teaching consists of a combination of investigations and short activities. These activities explore and revisit rules and statutory spellings for each year group. 

Children will be required to learn the 'Go Grapheme Grafters' words each week (words linked to spelling patterns, rules and statutory spellings) and these will be continuously revisited. There are no weekly spellings sent home to learn. 

Spellings is taught in two weekly blocks:

Week 1:

Investigation (30 mins)

Children have a hypothesis to test in which they have to prove or disprove. 

Go Grapheme Grafters

Teachers share 15 words (8 words in week 1 and 7 words in week 2) with the children. The children have to discuss which part of the word is tricky and must use their KS1 phonic knowledge to decide how they will remember to spell the words. Emphasis is put on the children circling or underlining parts of the word they find tricky and developing strategies for how to remember these parts of the words. 

Week 2:

5 x 10 minute daily tasks that teach rules and revisit a wide range of strategies, rules and patterns linked to spelling. The children will complete these tasks in their yellow spelling books. 

Useful websites to practice spellings:

• https://spellingframe.co.uk/ - free spelling practice games for Year 1 to Year 6
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zt62mnb - watch videos to help learn tricky spelling words
• http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ - free interactive literacy resources and games 

Handwriting

Children in Ducklings and Year 1 are taught to print their letters. Teaching focuses on being able to form all the lower case and capital letters in the alphabet. 

From the summer term of Year 1 through to Year 6, children are taught the Twinkl Continuous Cursive style of handwriting. Handwriting is taught both explicitly and referred to within other lessons such as phonics or spelling sessions.  

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