“All staff are passionate about reading and the importance of being able to read well. Leaders foster a love of reading” – Ofsted 2022
“I like dinosaur books. My favourite dinosaur is the TREX. He eats meat.” Upper Foundation
“I get to learn new words from reading. I can read tricky words.” Upper Foundation
“I love Princess stories they’re my favourite. I love Cinderella and Belle.” Year 1
“I like English. We had a giant visit our classroom.. it was lots of fun. We could ask lots of questions.” Year 1
“I like stories by Roald Dahl. My favourite story is the Magic Finger.” Year 2
“I like to read. It calms me down.” Year 2
Subject Leader – Mrs Simmons.
At Dimple Well Infant and Nursery School, English lessons focus on the development of speaking and listening, reading and comprehension skills and writing skills, including the teaching of spelling and grammar. In Years One and Two, we use the National Curriculum as a basis for our English teaching. Years One and Two have daily English sessions concentrating mainly on the development of reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Reception and Nursery children carry out a range of early Literacy activities as part of their Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. We use a range of stimuli to engage the children, which including technology, to support teaching and learning in English.
At Dimple Well Infant School, we recognise the importance of language and communication. Speaking and listening skills are developed throughout school. Children are immersed in language and literature with key vocabulary introduced across the curriculum. We also use drama, role-play, individual and group discussions to develop speaking and listening across subject areas.
We value reading as a key life skill. We believe that for all our children to become fluent readers and writers, phonics must be taught through a systematic and structured phonics programme. We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Phonic Programme to plan and provide daily engaging phonic lessons. In phonics, we teach children that the letters of the alphabet represent a different sound, that these can be used in a variety of combinations and are put together to make words. The children learn to recognise all of the different sounds and combinations that they might see when they are reading or writing. Our phonics teaching starts in Nursery and follows a very specific sequence that allows our children to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through school. These strategies are modelled in shared reading and writing both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum.
Children at Dimple Well Infant School and Nursery read a variety of texts including fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry. We use a range of individual home reading books, including phonic reading books to support the teaching and learning of phonics. Group reading practice sessions start in Upper Foundation Stage and are continued in Years One and Two. Children are given the opportunity to apply their phonic knowledge by using fully matched decodable books. These sessions happen 3 times a week and children take this book home to ensure success is shared with families. Children are encouraged to read for pleasure and enjoyment and each class also uses the library weekly, and will bring home a library book of their own choosing. Children also take home sharing reading books in Upper Foundation, Years One and Two.
How we teach blending through Little Wandle Phonics Programme: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
Phase 2 sounds pronunciation: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
More Phase 2 sounds pronunciation: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
Phase 3 sounds pronunciation: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
Explanation of Tricky Words: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
Quick guide to Alien Words: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/engaging-parents/
At Dimple Well Infant School, we aim for children to become confident and independent writers. We recognise writing as a key life skill and strive to promote writing opportunities so that children write for a range of audiences and purposes. Children are immersed in models of writing through guided and teacher led activities. They are taught the key skills of writing through the strands of the curriculum – writing transcription, writing composition, writing vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. We aim for children to write through a range of contexts and cross curricular themes. This begins in Foundation stage where early mark making is encouraged in all areas of the provision. In Years One and Two pupils are encouraged to develop and apply key skills as they write for a range of purposes and subjects.
See below samples of children’s writing demonstrating how children’s writing abilities progress over time at Dimple Well Infant School.