English

Autumn Term

Speaking and Listening

Children will be taught to:

  • Take turns in speaking
  • Listen to others and relate their contributions to what has gone before
  • Sustain concentration
  • Make relevant comments
  • Ask questions to clarify their understanding
  • Identify and respond to sound patterns in language
  • Use and remember some main features of spoken standard English

Reading

  • Read aloud for fluency, expression and understanding
  • Answer comprehension questions in complete sentences
  • Use phonological, contextual, grammatical and graphic knowledge to work out, predict and check the meaning of unfamiliar words
  • Evaluate books and stories
  • Read on-sight and spell approximately 30 more words from Appendix List 1
  • Read on-sight high frequency words likely to occur in graded texts matched to the abilities of reading groups
  • Read new words from reading linked to particular topics, to build individual collections of personal interest or significant words
  • Re-read, learn and recite favourite poems & comment on aspects such as word combinations, sound patterns, and presentation

Writing:

Under the following headings children will be taught to:

Fiction
  • Write stories with familiar settings
  • Use story structure to write about their own experience in the same or a similar form
  • Use the language of time to structure a sequence of events, e.g. “when I had finished”, “suddenly”, “after that”
Poetry
  • Substitute own ideas using simple poetry structures, and to write new lines
Non-fiction
  • Write simple instructions, for familiar activities or routines
  • Organise instructions sequentially
  • Use, draw and label diagrams in instructions
  • Use direct, impersonal language in writing instructions modelled on texts read
  • Adapt  instructions
Handwriting

Children will begin using and practising the 4 basic handwriting joins:

  • diagonal joins to letters without ascenders e.g. ai, ar, un
  • horizontal joins to letters without ascenders e.g. ou, vi, wi
  • diagonal joins to letters with ascenders e.g. ab, ul, it
  • horizontal joins to letters with ascenders e.g. ol, wh, ot
Grammar

Children will be taught:

  • To  know the terms text and print marks, and investigate the variety of each
  • To extend awareness of the variety of punctuation marks
  • To define the term sentence – using a 5 point checklist
  • To be aware of the common use of capital letters
  • To introduce the use of time connectives to link events in a sentence
  • To use organisational devices e.g. arrows, lines, boxes, keys, to indicate sequences and relationships
  • To use commas and question marks to aid reading aloud with expression

Phonics and spelling

We follow the Jolly Phonics spelling programme. This aims to:

  • teach spelling systematically
  • improve vocabulary and comprehension
  • extend the children’s phonic knowledge

Homework

  • Spelling lists will be sent home each Monday and tested on the following Friday
  • A spelling activity sheet will be sent home on a weekly basis
  • We suggest children do some reading each day: this could be shared reading, parent reading to child, discussing the contents / pictures, child reading from school book or own book from home. Please note in the home/school book if your child has read their school book so that we can change it.