Literacy

At Wales Street Primary School, we believe strong literacy skills provide the foundation for success across all areas of learning. Our teaching is grounded in the Science of Learning, recognising that students become successful readers and writers when knowledge and skills are taught explicitly, practised regularly and revisited over time to strengthen long-term memory.

Students develop the essential components of literacy through carefully sequenced learning experiences that build reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Teachers use explicit instruction to introduce new knowledge and skills, followed by teacher modelling, guided practice and regular opportunities for independent application. Daily reviews, retrieval practice and purposeful feedback help students consolidate their learning and build confidence.

Students develop their literacy knowledge through systematic synthetic phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, handwriting and writing. In the junior years, students participate in daily PhOrMeS lessons to develop phonemic awareness and phonics knowledge, while Fluency Pairs strengthen reading accuracy, automaticity, pace and expression. In the upper years, students continue to develop fluency and comprehension through OCHRE novel studies and explicit vocabulary instruction using rich, high-quality texts.

Students are encouraged to discuss, analyse and respond to a wide range of texts, developing their comprehension, vocabulary and communication skills. They learn to think critically about what they read, justify their ideas using evidence and make meaningful connections between texts, their own experiences and the world around them.

Writing is taught through an explicit teaching model where students learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish for a variety of purposes and audiences. The 6+1 Writing Traits provide a consistent framework for developing ideas, organisation, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. Students receive regular opportunities to apply their learning through meaningful writing tasks while receiving targeted support and feedback.

By building strong literacy knowledge alongside confidence and perseverance, we empower students to see themselves as capable readers, writers and communicators who are prepared to succeed across all learning areas and beyond the classroom.