ENGLISH

Parent and teacher are both responsible for a child’s language development. The success and quality of a child’s education is largely judged on the level of literacy (i.e. the ability to read and write) which he/she achieves at school. To cope with the wide demands of our modern society children need to reach a high standard of literacy. At Woodside we place great emphasis on the achievement of literacy skills.

During the day children are constantly given the opportunity to develop their skill in using language. Playing together working in groups leads to discussion which helps to develop fluency, widen the child’s vocabulary and promotes the learning of new sentence structures. In Key Stage 1 there is a strong emphasis on the development of oral skills and often the children are called upon to relate news, make up mimes for discussion or little plays, to talk about pictures or retell stories in their own words. A child often has a special interest of his/her own, in which case a teacher will encourage him/her to talk, to write and to read about it.

Written English can for convenience be divided into:

• activities which foster the development of new skills within a formal framework (English ‘exercises’)

• activities which encourage the application of these skills in some form of creative work (imaginative writing, letter writing, topic work, descriptions, giving instructions, etc.)

Exercises in formal English work are carried out from textbooks in the juniors but this is supplemented by workcards and other relevant material.

READING

More concern is shown by parents over their child’s ability to read than over any other aspect of school work. At Woodside we place a major emphasis on working towards a high level of reading competence and allocate extra curriculum time to the acquisition of these skills.

The children follow a graded reading scheme until they reach the stage where they can read material that is generally considered suitable for a child of 11 years of age (i.e. they have a ‘reading age’ of 11). After this they are still ‘taught’ to read, but the concentration is on advanced reading skills (e.g. scanning, skimming, predicting, working cloze procedures) and widening their vocabulary.

Parents often enquire whether they should help with their child’s reading at home. This can be a great stimulus to the child but needs to be done with care, otherwise numerous problems can arise. There are many subskills involved in the teaching of reading that may present the children with difficulties of which parents may be unaware. If you want to help your child to read and are not sure how to set about it then please contact us at school and we shall be only too pleased to give advice and help.