"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go!"
​
Dr. Seuss
My Approach to English
Reading
The benefits of reading are vast and this is well documented. Your child will participate in a reading assessment during the school year. Questions in these papers will range from simple recall and retrieval of information, understanding the meaning of vocabulary, discussing the authors’ purpose when choosing words and phrases, and also assess your child's ability to infer and deduce characters’ motives and feelings.
Writing
There is no official formal assessment test in primary schools for writing. However, writing is assessed internally within your child's school by the teachers, so it is still an important area. Each year group has specific writing objectives that your child must master in order to meet their year group's expectations.
​
"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads."
​
Dr. Seuss
​
When I teach English, I combine reading and writing together to gain the highest quality in your child's work. Good reading leads to good writing. I always teach reading and writing through high-quality texts: first reading a text with the children, providing an opportunity to teach and assess the year group’s reading objectives; and then moving on to the writing process, using the same text. This enables your child to immerse themselves in the text first, allowing them to relate to the text prior to writing. Because writing involves application of a lot of skills at once, children are encouraged to apply the year group expectations as they write. Drafting and editing are also key parts to the writing process and an integral part of my teaching technique.
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar
Your child will undertake a formal test in spelling, punctuation and grammar in school. These tests assess your child's ability to identify word classes, parts of sentences and key functions of punctuation. Although learning the names of these different terms and identifying them is important, I also believe that children should also be able to apply these skills in their writing. With this in mind, I distribute these skills into the teaching of writing as well as encouraging them to master these terms and skills separately.