At Aboyne Lodge we aim to inspire the children with the necessary skills to become effective communicators through the spoken word, a love of books and a passion for writing.

 

It is our aim that by the time they leave us, pupils will be able to:

 

• read fluently and with good understanding of what is being read

• read 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 skills of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

 

 Spoken language

As part of our daily practice, we encourage our pupils to speak clearly and confidently and articulate their views and opinions. This begins when children enter the Nursery and it continues throughout school. We teach that children need to express themselves orally in an appropriate way, matching their style and response to audience and purpose. They are encouraged to listen and respond to literature, and to give and receive instructions. They also develop the skills of participating effectively in group discussions.

 

Phonics

We aim to teach high-quality phonics to ensure the children have the best start possible in reading and writing. Phonics is the beginning of children’s body of knowledge, skills and understanding that are an essential part of learning to read and write. Synthetic phonics is used as the main approach to teaching reading at our school. It is an approach to teaching phonics in which individual letters or letter sounds are blended to form groups of letters or sounds, and those groups are then blended to form complete words. To ensure that the children have a good grounding in phonics we use the Read Write Inc. programme. The children are organised into ability groups based on regular assessment.

 

Reading

At Aboyne Lodge we aim to help children develop a love of Reading. Reading opens the door to learning and is fundamental to children’s success in every area of the curriculum. Children are taught to read using a combination of phonics development (through Read Write Inc.), learning to recognise sight vocabulary (common exception words such as the, is, to etc) and strategies to help children to understand what they are reading and discuss meaning.  When developing early reading through phonics teaching, children work in small groups with an adult developing their reading skills with children at a similar developmental level, guided by the adult. Our reading scheme in Reception and Key Stage 1 is closely matched to the Read Write Inc. groupings ensuring that texts are carefully pitched at the right level for every child and ensures that the children experience a variety of genres and authors.

 

As the children move into Key Stage 2 they have many opportunities to read throughout the day independently, are listened to read regularly and are read to by the class teacher. Our teachers follow a book based approach for English meaning that written outcomes are stimulated through a book that children can really explore in detail and unpick. Often this doubles up as our class reader so the children get the whole story rather than just a small section of the book. These focus on the careful reading of texts, understanding (and spelling) of unfamiliar and difficult vocabulary as well as careful analysis, pulling apart and questioning of texts. Children have daily guided reading sessions using the VIPERS approach where they unpick a text. VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum.  They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts:

 

Vocabulary/Inference/Prediction/Explanation/Retrieval/Sequence or Summarise

  

We recognise that parental support is vital in helping children learn to read. In KS1, the books that the children take home are closely matched to the sounds that children are learning in their phonics lessons, with children in Key Stage 2 books are carefully matched to the children’s developing vocabulary and ability to read and understand more difficult texts.

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Writing

Competence in writing is crucial for the development of children’s communication skills. It offers the opportunity to store information for later retrieval, to interact with others, to reflect and to express ideas creatively. Skilled writers understand the characteristics of writing’s many forms, and are able to adapt their style to suit a wide range of purposes. Success in writing is an important ingredient for children’s progress in all other areas of the curriculum and our approach is cross curricular. It is designed to empower our pupils with the enthusiasm, creativity and technical skills to tackle all writing genres.