English is the development of the essential life skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Children need to be able to read and write in order to communicate and access information and ideas. At Westerton, we aim to combine the teaching of reading and writing within a context that is meaningful, purposeful and creative.
In writing, we combine the building blocks of phonics, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and spelling so that children can write in ways which are interesting, engaging and powerful. In this way, children can produce a range of different text types which communicate information, ideas, imagery and emotions. The ability to read and write is not an end in itself: it is the gateway to academic success, improved life expectations and lifelong learning.
We use ‘The Write Stuff’ as a basis for our writing lessons. The Write Stuff is based on two guiding principles; teaching sequences that slide between experience days and sentence stacking lessons. With modelling at the heart of them, the sentence stacking lessons are broken into bite-sized chunks and taught under the structural framework of ‘The Writing Rainbow’. Teachers prepare children for writing by modelling the ideas, grammar or techniques of writing. This systematic approach supports effective teaching and learning of writing.
Please ask your child's class teacher if you want to find out more!
