Literacy
(reading, writing, spelling)

Literacy refers to a child’s reading and written communication. This includes their ability to read words fluently, understand what they have read, spell words, and write sentences and longer written responses. Difficulties in these areas impact on a child’s ability to complete their schoolwork, send texts as their peers do, and learn functional literacy skills that will help them throughout their life.

We aim to support a child’s literacy skills by:

• Helping children recognise and play with the sounds in words, like rhyming or identifying the first sound in a word, which are key skills for reading.

• Teaching children how letters correspond to sounds we say, which helps with reading and spelling words.

• Supporting children in learning to sound out words and recognise sight words, making early reading easier.

• Helping children break down words into sounds and syllables to improve their spelling skills.

• Helping children understand what they read by focusing on key ideas, story structure, and making predictions.

• Teaching children new words and their meanings to improve both reading and writing.

• Assisting children with organising their thoughts and ideas when writing, focusing on sentence structure, grammar, and clarity.

• Helping children develop the ability to tell and write stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

• Supporting children in reading smoothly and accurately, which helps with overall reading enjoyment and comprehension.