Literacy
RWI - Read, Write, Inc.
Children at Clough Head School are taught literacy using the Ruth Miskin ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics programme from Reception Year onwards. For the majority of children they will have completed the programme by the end of Year 2. Our priority is for all children to complete Key Stage 1 being able to read and decode unfamiliar words fluently. The aim of the programme is to get children off the programme.
Children are grouped according to ability and the sounds they recognise and can read. Groups of children are small and consist of approximately 8 children. All groups are taught phonics by a Ruth Miskin trained teacher. For more information please see the links below or come into school to speak to any of our trained members of staff.
Parents may find resources for Read Write Inc useful in supporting their child with reading at home. These resources can be found by following the link to our Heights Federation webpage. Click here for a direct link to the correct section of the Heights website.
Drawing club
Drawing Club is an approach designed by Greg Bottrill that immerses children into a world full of imagination. We at Clough Head we fully embrace drawing club and can see the joy it brings to our children.
It is through drawing club that we open up the magic world of tales and story to children whilst at the same time enriching their language skills, developing their fine motor and share a really special time with them. Drawing Club is a fantastic place to start a child’s experience of school ‘Literacy’
- Monday- Vocab and character
- Tuesday- Vocab and setting
- Wednesday- Vocab and I wonder if...
- Thursday- Vocab and I wonder if...
- Friday- Vocab and I wonder if...
Drawing Club is based upon the 3M principle. These are making conversation, mark making and mathematics. We use a book, traditional tale or an animation as a portal for the week. Children learn new, exciting vocabulary that we revisit each day of the week. We draw characters on a Monday, settings on a Tuesday and we ‘wonder’ on a Wednesday and Friday.
We add maths to our drawings by talking about shapes, doubling, halving, addition, subtraction etc… We might be drawing a troll with a spherical shaped head, 2 strong, wiry hairs on his chin and double this amount coming out of each ear. He has one more than 4 buttons on his filthy, ripped shirt. Children observe as the teacher models drawing club each morning and then get the opportunity to complete their own drawings. They are invited to wear a lanyard showing they are part of drawing club and can borrow ideas from the teacher or create their own amazing ideas to share.
One of the most exciting parts of Drawing Club is adding secret symbols and passwords to our drawings. We always draw a secret symbol that can make anything happen! Sometimes we press them and aliens or unicorns become 3 times bigger, pencils turn into chocolate or hair turns multi-coloured! We then add a password to make the secret symbol work. This can be a mark, letter, digraph (2 letters that make one sound), a word or a sentence. As children make progress and become more confident with their phonics, their passwords develop and move towards phrases and sentences.