Speaking & Listening

We know that spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing and this is reflected in our EYFS curriculum design and continues throughout KS1 and KS2. We continue to develop pupils’ confidence and competence in their speaking and listening skills.

Speaking and listening support Reading

  • Pupils will be encouraged to explain their understanding of what they read and ask questions to check understanding.

Speaking and listening support Writing

  • We know that vocabulary and grammar are best developed by the quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak.

  • Our children are encouraged to use their inner ‘writers voice’ to prepare their ideas clearly before they write.

Overarching aims of Speaking and Listening in our school

  • 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.

Pupils should be taught to

  • listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers

  • ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge

  • use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary

  • articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions

  • give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings

  • maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments

  • use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas

  • speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English

  • participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play, improvisations and debates

  • gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)

  • consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others

  • select and use appropriate registers for effective communication.

Drama

Pupils are enabled to participate in drama, adopting, creating, sustaining and responding appropriately to others in role. These activities happen in the English teaching sequence during the immerse and analyse stages and feature as; hot seating, conscience alley, role on the wall, freeze frame and improvisation. Pupils are also given the opportunity to observe and respond to drama and theatre performances through enrichment.

Reading

At Fazakerley Primary School we know that mastering reading skills as early as possible is crucial and acts as a gateway to all other curriculum areas. Reading allows pupils to acquire knowledge including vocabulary acquisition. Research shows that it’s the encounters that children have with new vocabulary in reading that has the greatest impact on them gaining an understanding of the word and ability to use the word themselves in other contexts and subject areas. This allows the children to gain further knowledge in the future by building on what they already know. When children read widely and often, they encounter vocabulary they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. We take advantage of opportunities for vocabulary development through reading when they naturally arise; adults show pupils how to understand the relationship between words and meaning.  We aim to foster a love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We encourage our pupils to read widely across fiction, non-fiction and poetry to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum.

We aim for our pupils to:

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

Writing

Similarly, to reading having 2 dimensions, writing is constructed and our teaching develops pupils’ competence in the following two dimensions:

Transcription - spelling and handwriting. We encourage effective transcription including spelling quickly and accurately whilst using fluent, legible and speedy handwriting.

Composition - articulating ideas and structuring them in speech and writing coherently to a reader. This requires clarity, awareness of the audience, purpose and context, and an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Planning, revising and editing is also a part of composition.

Our pupils are taught to write consciously using standard English:

write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences

We use the writing processes of:

Shared

Guided

Modelled

Independent

We know in order to master the skills of writing (transcription and composition) our pupils need to have this explicitly modelled to them.

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG)

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar was part of the government's new focus in the current National Curriculum which was revised in 2014.

At the start of the year, classes from Y2- 6 enjoy SPaG fortnight. This happens in the first two weeks of autumn term in timing with Roald Dahl’s birthday (13th September). Teachers use a Roald Dahl novel as a vehicle to consolidate prior learning in SPaG, as well as teach new SPaG objectives. For example, when teaching use of exclamation marks, adults will showcase Roald Dahl’s use of them is his works. The year groups use the following novels:

Year 2 - George’s Marvellous Medicine

Year 3 - The Witches

Year 4 - Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Year 5 - The BFG

Year 6 - The Twits

Year 1 enjoy Roald Dahl’s The Magic Finger and Fantastic Mr Fox in the summer term as an introduction to this author.

Following this, the children benefit from SPaG Monday. This is the first English lesson at the start of each week which aims to support the pre-learning prior to a new genre starting or to support the current learning within a genre being taught. For example, if the children are about the begin or are in the middle of ‘Instructions’ as a genre, the use of imperative verbs would be a focus during the SPaG Monday lesson in order to support the identifying and using of them in the pupils’ reading and writing.