Literacy is taught at every stage of the Pre-Prep curriculum.
Literacy aims to instil all our Pre-Prep pupils with a love of reading and writing. We encourage our children to develop curious and enquiring minds through a broad, creative and wide-ranging curriculum and to absorb a rich variety of language, expressing themselves creatively and imaginatively through all media - stories, poetry, drama, action songs and non-fiction.
The subject is taught with a strong focus on phonic knowledge and comprehension. Ruth Miskin’s Read Write Inc (RWI) programme is used to develop our children's phonics and adapted to suit our children's needs. We follow Read, Write Inc's order for introducing the letter sounds and are guided by the lesson plans and RWI principles. We use a range of reading schemes in our Reception classes, ensuring the reading books are closely matched to the phonics skills we are teaching. Our core reading scheme from PP1 is Big Cats, but this is enhanced by other schemes to add depth. The children are encouraged to read and write at their own pace, ask questions, engage in discussion and refine their skills of listening, responding and demonstrating understanding.
Annual events like Literacy Week and World Book Day, combined with termly drama and reading workshops, and author talks, support the curriculum and make learning even more interactive.
By their final year in the Pre-Prep, pupils have become enthusiastic and discerning readers who are also able to express themselves by writing neatly, fluently and independently.