Literacy:

Literacy plays a vital role in children’s overall learning and development, helping them to become confident communicators, readers and writers. Through a range of engaging experiences and adult support, children gradually develop the key skills needed for reading, writing and communication.

Literacy development includes learning the relationship between sounds and letters, enabling children to begin reading and writing. Daily phonics sessions support children in learning new graphemes and sounds, which are also sent home each week for children and parents to practise together. Alongside this, children receive a phonics book linked to the sounds taught that week and a book to read for pleasure.

Developing a lifelong love of reading is an important part of early learning. Reading is made up of two key areas: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension begins from birth and develops through conversations with adults, sharing stories and non-fiction books, and enjoying rhymes, poems and songs together. Word reading involves decoding unfamiliar words and quickly recognising familiar printed words with confidence and fluency.

Writing is another important aspect of literacy and includes transcription skills, such as spelling and handwriting, alongside composition skills, where children learn to organise, structure and express their ideas verbally before writing them down. Repeated opportunities to mark make, draw, write and engage in storytelling activities help children build confidence and independence in their literacy skills.