Phonics and Spelling

At Captain Cook Primary School we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers.

We believe that linguistic phonics, delivered in a consistent and progressive manner, provides the foundations of key knowledge and skills, enabling our children to develop into fluent readers and confident spellers.

Through regular, direct teaching of phonics, our youngest children learn to apply the alphabetic code while developing the key skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme manipulation. As they progress though school, our children develop their knowledge of the wider alphabetic code while continuing to apply their skills, enabling them to spell increasingly complex words.

Reading

As well as developing our children’s phonic knowledge so that they become fluent readers, we also aim to: foster and develop their love of reading through exposure to a wide range of quality literature, read both independently and with adults; increase their comprehension of a variety of texts so that they can
read for understanding, across the whole curriculum and develop their love for language through exploration of vocabulary, word meanings and associations.

We achieve this through our strong commitment to and emphasis on reading throughout the whole school. Shared and whole-class guided reading sessions are built into the school timetable so that children are explicitly taught the skills of reading. A designated slot is provided at the end of each day for an adult to read a quality text to the class; these text have been carefully selected to ensure that they offer diversity and are of high quality. Regular reading events take place in school to encourage children to read at home and high engagement levels are maintained through positive incentives.

At our school, we recognise the important role that parents play in developing and encouraging reading at home. To this end we ensure that parents receive regular information from school to guide and support them in this fulfilling this.

Writing

Our aim is that all pupils should be able to communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions effectively through their writing. Throughout their time at Captain Cook Primary School, we want them to acquire and employ a wide range of vocabulary and a secure understanding of grammar. Pupils are encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their work, and we aim to ensure that pupils have developed a well-formed, fluent cursive style by the time they move to secondary school.

Across school, our pupils are provided with opportunities to write for a wide variety of purposes and to apply their writing skills across the curriculum. We encourage pupils to acquire independence as writers, developing their understanding of writing as a process involving the planning, drafting, evaluating and
editing of their work. Awareness of audience and purpose is fostered through discussion of model texts, and pupils are encouraged to demonstrate their understanding by incorporating key features within their own writing. By the time they leave us in Year 6, our intent is for our pupils to write accurately and coherently, consciously adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.