Speaking and Listening

At Kyson we strongly believe being able to speak clearly and process speech sounds; to understand others; to express ideas and interact with others are fundamental building blocks for a child's development.

Our curriculum is built around a vocabulary rich environment, allowing pupils the chance to listen, communicate and speak with confidence.

Speaking and Listening is the over-arching umbrella to all of our learning at Kyson, the importance of language runs through the roots of our curriculum. Reading and Writing are successful due to the language culture we embed from the beginning of school life.

In EYFS pupils learn to listen, segment, blend and speak through quality phonics teaching. Wide opportunities for speaking and listening are created through our continuous provision and structured Literacy sessions. Role-play, co-operative play and listening games feature heavily in an Early Years’ classroom. We screen all children in Reception using Language links, identifying problems quickly and put in place individualised interventions, which are monitored throughout the school.

Strong phonics teaching continues throughout KS1, allowing children time and opportunity to explore sounds. The singing of songs, reciting of poems and performing nursery rhymes feature heavily in everyday school life.

Throughout KS1 and KS2, whole class reading is taught through “echo reading” so that children can understand sentences as a whole and use the intended intonation. Writing is orally modelled, whilst showering pupils with vocabulary, pupils then orally model their own sentences before committing them to paper. The sharing of a story at the end of each day provides pupils the chance to listen to high quality texts.  Drama activities are used in most subjects to enhance learning; such as re-telling of stories in R.E, taking on the role of a programmable object in Computing and conscience-alleys in PSHE. Throughout a session pupils often have the opportunity to talk with a partner, work in small groups or present to the class as a whole. Class assemblies, performances, theme days and celebration assemblies encourage pupils to speak out to an audience and support sustained listening.

What can I do at home?

Read a story/part of a story to your child. Create family discussion around current affairs or topics of interest. Allow time for your child to articulate their sentences and model correct grammar back to them. Introduce new vocabulary to your child.