First and Second Classes
Developing receptiveness to oral language
The child should be enabled:
- to experience challenging vocabulary and sentence
structure from the teacher
- listen to stories, descriptions, instructions and
directions
- listen to sounds and respond to them
- express in mime various emotions and reactions
- become more adept in using verbal and non-verbal behaviour
in order to secure and maintain attention
Developing competence and confidence in using oral
language
The child should be enabled to:
- talk about and reflect on past and present experiences,
and plan, predict, and speculate about future experiences
- initiate discussions
- engage in real and imaginary situations to perform
different social functions
- focus on the subject under discussion and sustain a
conversation on it
Developing cognitive abilities through oral language
The child should be enabled to:
- give a description or describe a process, and answer
questions about it
- listen to other children describe experiences
- become increasingly explicit in relation to people, times,
places, processes and events
- engage in real and imaginary situations
- ask questions
Developing emotional and imaginative life through oral
language
The child should be enabled to:
- describe everyday experiences and events
- tell stories in his own words
- listen to, read, learn and recite a varied repertoire of
poems
- listen to, learn and tell riddles and jokes
- recognise and re-create sounds in the environment
The Primary School Curriculum’s belief in the primacy of
oral language is recognised by the level of emphasis which will be placed on
giving children opportunities to talk and discuss a wide variety of topics. The
Sunny Streets posters will provide a starting point for some of the
discussions.
The News
Emphasis should be on topical events of interest to the
child. A good method of discovering
the interests of the children is to give them an opportunity to give an account
of their news. If a certain period
of time can be allocated to "news" (e.g. after roll call or after
morning prayer) it will encourage children to prepare their account and it will
avoid disappointment to any child who has prepared his work but has not got the
chance to air his views.
Children can give their news on a rota basis.
It will stop individual children monopolizing "news" time and
the teacher can note the shy children who don't contribute any day.
These children may later be encouraged to retell their stories or read on
mock T.V. screens. Children who have idiosyncrasies of speech can have these
checked provided this can be done without drawing too much attention to them.
If any child has a bad speech impediment it might be worth finding out if
the parents are bringing him to a speech therapist. Items of news that crop up
regularly can be given special consideration.
Additional vocabulary can be presented at such times. Discussion will
arise from most areas of the curriculum and these opportunities may be used to
present new words.
Story
- Retell the main ideas of a story.
- Ask questions to elicit further information about a story.
- Suggest a new title for a story.
- Make hypothetical suggestions about antecedent events when
final section of story has been told.
- Recognise incorrect detail.
- Project into the feelings of a character in a given story
situation.
- Illustrate a situation or character in story visually.
- Mime a situation or character in a story.
- Write a story where key words are given along with picture
sequence.
- Develop an original story in a group situation.
Reading Strategies
The child should be enabled to:
- Engage in shared reading activities
- Visit the class library
- Continue to build up a sight vocabulary of common words
- Engage in activities to increase awareness of sounds
- Self-correct reading errors
- Develop reading skills through engaging with reading
material appropriate to his stage of development
- Adapt reading style for different purposes
Reading for pleasure and information
The child should be enabled to:
- Read from a range of children’s literature
- Engage in personal reading
- Read aloud to share a text with an audience
- Find information
- Perform simple information retrieval tasks such as using a
table of contents and using a simple index
Developing interests, attitudes and ability to think
The child is enabled to:
- Pursue individual interests through independent reading of
fiction and non-fiction
- Adopt an active approach to a text by posing his own
questions
- Develop comprehension strategies
- Perform alphabetical order tasks
- Express a formal response by giving a report in oral or
written form
- Use Information Technology to enhance reading development
Responding to text
The child is enabled to:
- Continue to listen to stories and poems being read aloud
- Engage with a wide variety of texts
- Listen to stories read aloud in instalments
- Explore different attitudes and feelings by imagining what
it would be like to be certain characters
First Class
Core Reading Books
- Sunny Street Friends
- Books, Books, Books
- Never Bored with Books
Group reading and individual reading are desirable for
children in 1st and 2nd Classes. Children
will need training at speed and pitch. Plans
of questions on reading material should be made out to test comprehension. A
scheme of extra readers (library) should be drawn up to cater for spreading
interests of the children. The children will have these books at home and they
can bring them in to form a class Library. Each
child can select a book which he can exchange for a new one when he had finished
reading it. Children can bring these
books home to read or read them in class. Each
child must look after the books carefully. A
few questions should be asked about each book on its return. Reference books can
be referred to for information during class, e.g. dictionary, encyclopaedia etc.
Auditory Comprehension and Memory
- Isolate and name a specific sound from a number of sounds
on tape.
- Tell the order in which a number of familiar sounds were
made.
- Identify fast/slow, high/low, loud/quiet sounds.
- Repeat polysyllabic words, e.g. industry, excellent.
- Remember simple instructions and repeat them when asked.
- Repeat in order a sequence of 4-6 letters or numbers
presented orally by the teacher.
- Re-tell a story previously told by the teacher.
- Use percussion instruments to beat out rhythm.
- Continue rhythm initiated by teacher.
- Repeat and say simple poems and jingles.
PHONICS and Spelling
See School Spelling Scheme
WRITING
Creating and fostering the impulse to write
The child is enabled to:
- Experience a class room environment that encourages
writing
- Seek help from teacher in order to achieve accuracy and
appropriate standard of presentation
- Write regularly for different audiences – personal
purposes, the teacher, other children, the family
- Choose topics to write about
- Have writing valued
Developing confidence, competence and the ability to write
independently
The child is enable to:
- Experience oral language when preparing a written task
- Work at drafting and re-drafting
- Understand the conventions of punctuation – full stops
and use of capital letters
- Spell words in a recognisable way based on an awareness of
common spelling strings
- Spell correctly a range of familiar words and use a
variety of sources as aids to spelling – words displayed in class, personal
dictionaries
- Choose topics for writing after consultation with teacher
- Confer with teacher on the quality of presentation
- Write notes and messages to different audiences –
teacher, friends, parents
Clarifying thought through writing
The child is enabled to:
- Write in a variety of genres – stories, poetry, diaries,
cards, invitations
- Write a version of a story told by the teacher
- Write the significant details about an event or activity
- Write a simple sentence and add words to extend its
meaning
- Write answers to questions asked by the teacher
- Listen to a story and write down questions to ask about it
Developing emotional and imaginative life
The child is enabled to:
- Express feelings in writing
- Write about experiences
- Draw and write about sensory experience
- Draw and write stories and poems
- Express in writing likes and dislikes
- Listen to music and write about it
Handwriting
The letters of a word should be kept quite close together
while the spaces between words should be generous.
Some children will write neatly but for many six and seven year olds,
they will need much practice at headlines. Use
of photocopier will prove very useful in this instance, as it will in the making
of work cards. Need for punctuation
may be confined to use of full stop in first class.
Second Class
Oral Language
Suggestions
Topics
- Fun and fantasy
- Dinosaurs
- Travel
- Birds
- Kitchens
- Weather
- Pied Piper
- Festivals
- Space
- Sounds
- Daily News
- Nature Study : Talk about the seasonal changes, animal and
plant life.
- What would you do if ?
- Story endings.
- Flying - airports, being on an aeroplane
- Supermarkets
- Toys
- Telling the Truth
- A Scary Monster
- Fish
- Ghosts
- Wishes
- Clothes
- Pets
- Being Lost in a Shopping Centre
- Accidents in the Home
- Witches
- Seasonal topics
Possible Approach
- Anticipate what will happen by discussing the title of the
story
- Analyse the plot
- Building of
characters from contextual clues: Physical
appearance, behavioural traits, feelings.
- Predicting what will happen as the story unfolds.
- Get children to tell story in four or five sentences.
Reading
The main goal of the reading programme is to teach the
children how to read, but the ultimate objective is to foster an enjoyment of
reading. The two main aims are subsumed under the headings of reading to learn
and learning to read.
Core Reading Books
- Sunny Street Fiction Favourites
- More Sunny Street Fiction Favourites
- Sam and Some Sticky Situations
Spellings and Phonics
See School Spelling Policy
Document
Writing
Possible Topics
- Relating a story from experience
- Completing a story
- Write a Book
- Language Experience Approach
- The day I caught a fish.
- Icarus and the moon.
- The silliest thing I ever did.
- A Moon Bear comes to Earth.
- You have the power to make people dance.......
- Make 4 Wishes
- My Fancy Dress Outfit
- Putting out the Dragon's Fire.
- The Lost Dog
- Lost in a Supermarket.
- My House
- My Summer Holidays
- The School Jog
- Halloween
- My Pet
- The Zoo
- My Favourite TV Programme
- The Day I fell Off My Bicycle
- Myself
- My School
- My Favourite Sport
Poetry
Give the children the opportunity to hear, recite and
write poetry. Explanation of ideas, showing why poet opted for one word instead
of another.
Drama and Integration with Other Areas of the Curriculum
- Dramatise various stories
- Act out people at work
- Act out various poems
- Act out familiar emotions - anger, happiness,
sadness...
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