Implementation

Reading

Phonics & Early Reading 

In Reception, Year 1 and for any child who needs additional support, we teach daily systematic synthetic phonics using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. This ensures: 

• Consistent, high-quality phonics instruction 
• Regular assessments to track progress and target intervention
• Fully decodable books matched to each child’s stage
• Clear routines for blending, segmenting and letter formation 

Children take home decodable books to build fluency and are able to pick a Reading for Pleasure book from the library to share with their families.  

Learning to Read: Little Wandle Reading Practice Sessions 

From Week 4 in Reception, children take part in Little Wandle reading practice sessions three times a week. These sessions follow Little Wandle’s three-reads approach, focusing on: 

1. Decoding – first read: recognising graphemes and blending to read the words
2. Prosody – second read: reading with expression and understanding the writer’s voice
3. Comprehension – third read: answering questions, discussing meaning and deepening understanding 

This repeated, structured approach helps children to develop accuracy, automaticity and confidence across each text 

Targeted Reading Groups

Although phonics is taught whole class, reading practice sessions are taught in target groups organised across EYFS and KS1. These groups are formed using ongoing assessment, ensuring that: 

• Every child is taught at the right level for their current reading development
• Reading books are closely matched to each child’s decoding ability 
• Children receive the scaffolding they need to develop accuracy and confidence
• Fluent and secure readers receive the challenge needed to continue progressing 

Reading Fluency and Comprehension

As children move through the school, we teach both reading fluency and comprehension explicitly and systematically. Fluent reading is essential for understanding, and children need regular opportunities to practise both accuracy and meaning-making across a wide range of texts. 

Fluency

We support children to develop: 

• Accuracy – recognising words reliably and automatically
• Automaticity – reading at an age-appropriate pace
• Prosody – reading with expression, intonation and phrasing 

Fluency is strengthened through strategies such as teacher modelling, echo reading, choral reading, partner reading and short repeated re-reading tasks. 

Comprehension

From Year 2 onwards, comprehension is taught daily through Book Club sessions. These dialogic, discussion-rich lessons immerse children in high-quality literature and help them explore meaning at both text and conceptual level. 

Our Book Club texts are carefully chosen to align with our units of inquiry, giving children the contextual understanding they need to make deeper connections. This ensures that comprehension is grounded not only in the words on the page, but also in the wider concepts, themes and perspectives explored across the curriculum. 

Book Club sessions: 

• Teach key comprehension skills explicitly (e.g., inference, prediction, clarifying, summarising)
• Encourage children to justify opinions, explore alternative viewpoints and build on one another’s thinking
• Develop ambitious vocabulary through direct discussion of the text
• Support children to engage critically and creatively with literature 

This integrated approach enables children to become confident, expressive and insightful readers who understand and enjoy what they read. 

Reading for Pleasure 

Reading for pleasure is central to our ethos. We aim to nurture joyful, motivated readers who choose to read widely. 

Children experience: 

• Daily story time in EYFS and KS1
• Independent reading time in KS2 
• Well-curated class reading corners featuring inclusive, diverse texts
• A whole-school reading spine
• Opportunities to browse, choose and recommend books to others
• Author visits, reading events and opportunities to share books with peers 

Reading is celebrated in our classrooms and across our school community. 

Writing

Writing at Girton Glebe

Our writing curriculum is designed to build confident, expressive and accurate writers. We place high-quality literature, explicit instruction and purposeful writing at the centre of our practice. Children learn to communicate clearly, organise ideas effectively and write for real audiences across a range of meaningful contexts.  

In Reception, children develop the essential foundations of writing through: 

• A language-rich environment 
• Daily phonics and handwriting 
• Oral storytelling and sentence rehearsal
• Modelled and shared writing 
• Mark-making and early composition across continuous provision 

Alongside this, our children participate in Drawing Club, where drawing, storytelling and vocabulary come together to support early composition. Children invent characters, build imaginative worlds and rehearse sentences verbally before beginning to record their ideas. 

This prepares children for the text-based, structured approach they will encounter from Year 1 onwards. 

Writing Roots (Literacy Tree) — Years 1 to 6

From Year 1 to Year 6, we follow Literacy Tree’s Writing Roots, a high-quality book-based / text-based approach. 

This ensures that writing is: 

• Rooted in exceptional children’s literature
• Purpose-led, with outcomes designed for authentic audiences
• Immersive, with drama, discussion and vocabulary woven throughout
• Inclusive, reflecting a diverse range of voices and lived experiences
• Structured, guiding pupils through modelled, shared and independent writing
• Grammar- and punctuation-rich, taught meaningfully within the context of the text 

Each Writing Roots unit builds towards a polished written outcome, supported by explicit teaching, shared examples and clear success criteria.  

Research-Informed Writing Instruction 

Across the school, teachers draw on research-informed strategies from the Six Principles of the Hochman Method (The Writing Revolution) to strengthen foundational writing skills and create additional writing opportunities where appropriate. 

This includes: 

• Explicit teaching of sentence construction and syntax
• Sentence combining and sentence expansion 
• Structured note-taking and planning routines 
• Oral rehearsal to strengthen clarity and vocabulary choice 
• Scaffolded approaches that build independence 
• Additional practice tasks to reinforce accuracy and control 

These strategies enable teachers to adapt planning to meet the needs of all pupils and to strengthen sentence-level mastery, helping children develop the control, confidence and precision needed to organise and communicate their ideas effectively. 

Spelling

Spelling is taught progressively across the school: 

• EYFS & Year 1: through Little Wandle phonics
• Year 2: through the Little Wandle spelling programme, bridging decoding and encoding
• KS2: weekly spelling lessons using SpellingFrame, with vocabulary developed through Writing Roots units 

Spelling is reinforced through regular practice, low-stakes quizzes and application within writing. 

Handwriting

Handwriting is taught through Letter-join, with a clear progression from early letter formation to fluent, joined cursive. 

High expectations for presentation are modelled consistently across the curriculum. 

Pupils learn to: 

• Form letters accurately 
• Write with fluency and stamina
• Present work neatly and with pride
• Choose the appropriate handwriting style for purpose 

Speaking and Oracy

At Girton Glebe, spoken language underpins all learning. We teach oracy explicitly across the school so children learn how to talk and learn through talk, supporting reading, writing and inquiry. 

We use the four strands of the Cambridge Oracy Framework—Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive, and Social & Emotional—to ensure clear, research-informed progression from EYFS to Year 6. Our Oracy Progression Map sets out year-by-year expectations . 

What Oracy Looks Like at Girton Glebe

Across the curriculum, children learn to: 

• Speak clearly, confidently and with appropriate expression 
• Use sentence stems to agree, build, challenge and clarify
• Ask thoughtful questions and justify their ideas 
• Use specialist vocabulary in context 
• Listen actively and take turns respectfully 
• Present their learning to different audiences 

Teachers model high-quality talk and use scaffolds such as sentence stems and discussion roles, as outlined in our staff training materials. 

• Oracy in EYFS 

In Reception, children develop early oracy skills through storytelling, role play, Drawing Club, vocabulary-rich play and daily opportunities for purposeful talk. 

• Oracy from Year 1 to Year 6 

As children move through the school, they take part in a range of structured talk routines such as dialogic Book Club discussions, paired problem-solving, debates and short presentations linked to their units of inquiry. 

• Performances and Presentational Oracy 

Pupils also build presentational confidence through a structured programme of performances: 

• EYFS & Year 1: A traditional Nativity in the autumn term
• Years 2 & 3: A spring production 
• Years 4 & 5: A summer term production 
• Year 6: A choice between staging a full production or completing a research project leading to an exhibition or formal presentation 

These experiences provide meaningful opportunities to speak clearly, perform to real audiences and apply oracy skills with confidence.  

Impact of Oracy

Strong oracy teaching helps pupils think deeply, develop rich vocabulary, communicate clearly and engage confidently in inquiry. By Year 6, pupils can articulate ideas fluently, respond thoughtfully to others and adapt their talk for different audiences and purposes.