Literacy

Our Fully Immersive Literacy Approach

We have a fully immersive approach to literacy at Houghton Conquest. This means using one engaging, high quality text/ stimulus over multiple weeks. This also allows for more opportunities to talk, rehearse, share, act out and discuss the stimulus, improving oracy skills and vocabulary.

We believe this approach reduces the barriers many children face when writing, including anxiety, lack of confidence, uncertainty/confusion and lack of vocabulary.

When children know the focus stimulus well, they have solid foundations for writing. Over time and through the progression of tasks the children’s knowledge and understanding of the text will develop and grow. They will no longer struggle to remember who the characters are or what happened in what order, this will be embedded. They can then focus on incorporating more advanced vocabulary, grammatical elements and extending their writing.

The aims of the National Curriculum for Literacy

The overarching aim for Literacy in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for Literacy aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

Overall Intent for Literacy

At Houghton Conquest  Lower School we are passionate about the importance of our Literacy Curriculum; we aim to provide our children with a high-quality, immersive literacy education, one that will develop a love of reading, writing and conversation. Our intention is to teach pupils to speak, read and write fluently, so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively.

We are passionate about nurturing a culture where children are immersed in a world of rich vocabulary, conversation and language in both spoken and written form through our exciting range of cross curricular topics.  We offer our children a vast range of genres, writing styles, and hands on experiences to fuel their enthusiasm for reading and writing in everyday life. As part of our topic based approach to teaching, these skills are taught, modelled and embedded across the whole curriculum, so learning is not restricted to the daily Literacy lesson.

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.” Napoléon Bonaparte

A child’s ability to read unlocks a whole world of potential. We believe that when children are inspired, engaged and excited by books and experiences they will develop a love of learning like no other.

At Houghton Conquest Lower School we recognise the importance of our parents and carers in supporting their children to develop all areas of Literacy through encouraging a strong home-school partnership. Throughout the year we aim to host a variety of family friendly events such as ‘Books for Breakfast’, to encourage families to join in and support their children’s love of reading. We also offer parent workshops in reading and phonics which enables parents and carers to understand how to develop and build upon the skills being taught in school in a consistent and coherent approach.