Language, Literacy and Communication

The Curriculum for Wales requires us to teach your child the skills of reading, oracy and writing.

These elements are taught in a continuous and progressive way to develop your child’s literacy and communication skills.

From the youngest age we work on developing language and preparing your child for reading and writing. We use the ‘Read, Write, Inc’ programme to aid with developing reading, and spelling skills, which in turn are used to develop your child’s ability to write independently.

From early on at school, the children are taught all the sounds and practice forming letters correctly. Eventually, they will taught to develop a legible, cursive writing style and will use their literacy skills in a wide variety of forms and for different audiences.

We work hard in developing pupils’ skills of extending writing using accurate spelling and punctuation. Pupils write confidently in a range of genre including poetry, reports, book reviews, speeches, stories, articles and many others.

As the children progress through school, you can quickly expect to see improvements in the fluency of their reading. We monitor very closely your child’s reading age and the progress made. We may involve other professionals if we feel there may be a specific difficulty. You will be fully involved in this process.

Reading books will be sent home regularly with your children. Parents are asked to assist by listening regularly to their children reading at home. All parents can help by encouraging their children to read for information and enjoyment in their leisure time and to share this experience with their children. If you need some ideas on how to support your child’s reading, then please come to school and see your child’s class teacher.

The teaching of reading is a priority at Tavernspite school as is it the vehicle that allows children to access the other areas of the curriculum. We develop reading skills through a variety of approaches including guided reading activities, individual and whole class reading. The aim is to ensure that all children become confident independent readers as soon as possible.

The development of oracy skills are considered very important at our school. Our curriculum is well designed to ensure that there are numerous opportunities for children to develop high level oracy skills from a young age.

One of our programmes is called Terrific Talkers (TT) . Our TT programme teaches pupils’ bespoke public speaking and presenting skills, a very important range of skills in this ever changing world. Every term the children prepare a presentation to deliver to the class on a subject that particularly interests them.

During their presentation they practice skills such as interacting with the audience, sequencing, articulation, holding eye contact and presentation structuring. This is a fantastic way for children to develop confidence in speaking to an audience.

We are always very careful to go with the child and how they are feeling at a given time as we do not wish for anyone to feel under pressure. Public speaking can be quite challenging so we aim to build confidence at the appropriate pace for each child.