Goetre Junior School Literacy Unit Summary Plan
Name:
Class:
Year Group/s:
Poetry 1/3
Poems on a Theme
Term:
Week Beginning:
Overview
Objectives

Children hear, read and respond to a range of simple poems with a similar theme. They
join in with 'performances' of them, with and without music, actions and other
enhancements. They use some of the poems as simple models for their own writing.

As a class and in groups, children hear, read and respond to a range of simple poems on a
shared theme, for example weather, animals, toys. This theme could well be selected to fit
with work across the curriculum. They discuss their own and others' responses to the
poems and what they think they are about. They talk about their favourite words and parts
of the poems, and notice the poems' patterns. They consider obvious similarities and
differences between the poems. They join in with and 'perform' the poems in a variety of
ways, including where appropriate singing, adding music, rhythms or sounds, doing actions
and acting out.
In order that children make effective progress in core skills across the year, it is important that these Strands are
planned for in every unit:
Strand 5 – Word Recognition: decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling) at KS1
Strand 6 – Word Structure and Spelling at KS2.
Strand 11 – Sentence Structure and Punctuation at both key stages.

With extensive contribution from and involvement by children, the teacher models and
explores writing a simple, patterned poem on the same theme, as a shared composition,
for example collecting words and phrases and then making up simple couplets or verses,
based around them. Building from earlier work on the senses, children consider what
things are 'like', as well as indulging in fanciful inventions such as magical wishes.
Opportunity is taken to focus on language choices, further developing children's vocabulary
and their word reading and writing skills in the process. Sometimes simple models from the
reading are used as a frame for writing. These collaboratively written simple poems, too,
can be read, sung, danced and otherwise explored.

Following on from this modelling, children in pairs or individually (possibly then working
with a response partner) write their own simple patterned texts (on paper or on screen) on
the given theme, developing their writing by adding further words or phrases to a specified
beginning, following a given pattern or writing within an appropriate frame. Stimulus and
support are provided through first-hand experience and through images, sounds, music,
etc., and children are encouraged to explore ideas verbally before writing. Outcomes are
then shared and discussed. They could be recorded on audio or video as a vehicle for both
sharing and review.
These are in addition to the Objectives listed below.
1. Speaking
 Interpret a text by reading aloud with some variety in pace and emphasis
2. Listening and responding
 Listen with sustained concentration, building new stores of words in different contexts
3. Group discussion and interaction
 Ask and answer questions, make relevant contributions, offer suggestions and take turns
 Explain their views to others in a small group, decide how to report the group's views to the class
5. Word recognition: decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling)
 Recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes already taught
 Recognise and use alternative ways of spelling the graphemes already taught
 Identify the constituent parts of two-syllable and three-syllable words to support the application of phonic
knowledge and skills
 Recognise automatically an increasing number of familiar high frequency words
 Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the prime approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words that are not
completely decodable
 Read more challenging texts which can be decoded using their acquired phonic knowledge and skills, along with
automatic recognition of high frequency words
 Read and spell phonically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words
6. Word structure and spelling
 Spell new words using phonics as the prime approach
 Segment sounds into their constituent phonemes in order to spell them correctly
 Recognise and use alternative ways of spelling the graphemes already taught
 Use knowledge of common inflections in spelling, such as plurals, -ly, -er
 Read and spell phonically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words
7. Understanding and interpreting texts
 Explain the effect of patterns of language and repeated words and phrases
8. Engaging with and responding to texts
 Visualise and comment on events, characters and ideas, making imaginative links to their own experiences
9. Creating and shaping texts
 Find and use new and interesting words and phrases, including story language
 Create short simple texts on paper and on screen that combine words with images (and sounds)
12. Presentation
 Write most letters, correctly formed and orientated, using a comfortable and efficient pencil grip
 Write with spaces between words accurately