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Literacy and Maths Curriculum
Literacy
Our curriculum is designed using key quality texts to ensure children develop a good understanding of literacy. It is focused on developing the children’s vocabulary and knowledge of story structures to ensure the children are able to retell and create their own stories both orally and written. The reading curriculum is focused on developing the skills of reasoning, fluency, accuracy and understanding.
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised 2021: Programme progression Reception and Year 1 overviews
This programme overview shows the progression of GPCs and tricky words that we teach term-by-term. The progression has been organised so that children are taught from the simple to more complex GPCs, as well as taking into account
the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words. All the graphemes taught are practised in words, sentences, and later on, in fully decodable books. Children review and revise GPCs and words, daily, weekly and
across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into their long term memory.
Children need to learn to read as quickly as reasonably possible, so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. Our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable if schools maintain pace, practice and participation by all children. Children who are not keeping-up with their peers will be given additional practice immediately through keep-up sessions. A breakdown of the content covered in ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’ can be seen below:
| Phase | Phonic knowledge and skills |
|---|---|
Reception Autumn 1 – Phase 2 Graphemes | s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f l Tricky words: is I the |
Reception Autumn 2 – Phase 2 Graphemes | ff ll ss j v w x y z zz qu ch sh th ng nk Tricky words: put* pull* full* as and has his her go no to into she push* he of we me be |
Reception Spring term – Phase 3 | ai ee igh oa oo oo ar or ur ow oi ear air er Review Phase 3 Tricky words: was you they my by all are sure pure |
Reception Summer Term -Phase 4 | Short vowels with adjacent consonants Phase 3 long vowel graphemes with adjacent consonants Tricky words: said so have like some come love do were here little says there when what one out today |
| Phase Five (Throughout Year 1) | Now we move on to the “complex code”. Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, plus different ways of pronouncing the graphemes they already know. |
‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’ provides comprehensive guides and videos for parents to support everyone in helping the children learn to read at Talavera Infant School. Our core reading books are Big Cat- Letters and Sounds, we have many other phonic books to support the children in learning to read. As well as 1:1 reading with an adult, children read in small groups with each child reading the same book. In this way school staff can teach a specific skill most effectively. We value the 1:1 time that parents can spend reading with their children, and we expect children to read a minimum of three times a week at home and ideally every day.
Teachers use ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’ to introduce the formation of letters in handwriting and children learn how to write in print from YR and are taught to join their handwriting in Y2. Many children aren’t ready to write with a pencil when they start school so we encourage them to practise their letter shapes by writing in the air or in sand which helps to develop their arm muscles as well as helping them to learn letter shapes.
Regular practising of handwriting throughout years one and two helps children to master the skill of cursive letter formation. Spellings are often practised at the same time as handwriting.
The new national curriculum has an increased focus on the correct use of grammar, and on children knowing the correct terminology for grammatical terms.
For further information about the English curriculum and the key quality texts please select the buttons below
Maths
Throughout the school there is a focus on learning maths using practical objects, then pictorial recording before teaching children symbolic recording. We encourage children to explain how they arrived at a specific answer, and compare different ways of calculating to decide which is the most effective. This ‘mathematical reasoning’ is a significant part of the maths curriculum and enables us to find out whether children really understand what they are doing and why. In Years 1 and 2 we follow the National Curriculum 2014, which ensures children have mastered all of the basic mathematical skills and can use them fluently before moving on and working with greater numbers. Throughout Years 1 and 2 the class teachers frequently set additional maths homework which encourages the children to practise the many skills to help them achieve fluency.