In this article, we give you a taste of what to expect in these brand-new programmes. We also explain why, together, they offer your school a robust literacy package to equip children with the skills to become confident readers and writers!

Why are Literacy Skills Important?

Literacy skills – including reading comprehension and writing – are essential for effective communication, critical thinking, and overall development.

Reading comprehension skills enable children to understand, analyse and interpret instructions and information – crucial for learning across all areas of the curriculum, as well as problem-solving and decision making. Writing skills are equally important as they allow children to express their thoughts, convey ideas, and demonstrate understanding.

These skills are essential both in and outside of the classroom, in the workplace and in society as a whole. Literacy skills enable children to lead independent lives, participate in education, express themselves, gain employment and so much more.

What is Jolly Literacy?

Jolly Literacy replaces our Jolly Grammar programme. It is made up of two programmes, with resources for Years 1 to 6:

1) Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation

This six-level programme provides two lessons per week. It teaches new spelling patterns, dictionary and thesaurus skills and complex grammatical concepts in an accessible, child-friendly way.

It offers a systematic, progressive approach to teaching these areas, introducing more spelling patterns and new grammatical concepts like parts of speech, sentence structure and punctuation marks. As well as this, children expand on their vocabulary and comprehension skills.

The teaching of this programme is multi-sensory and active, with actions, activities and songs. Each year of teaching also provides revision and consolidation of learning from previous years.

Each level of the programme has a write-in Pupil Book with a full set of lesson activities for the year. This comes with the accompanying Teacher’s Book, providing step-by-step lesson plans, guidance and comprehensive support:

• Step-by-step lesson plans
• Continuous revision and consolidation of previous topics
• Full of playful yet purposeful activities
• Enables children to meet and exceed National Curriculum expectations

2) Reading Comprehension & Writing Skills

This programme provides two further weekly lessons. In the first, children explore a variety of rich texts incorporating the spelling, vocabulary and grammar learned earlier that week. The second lesson uses these texts as a springboard for stimulating ideas and introducing strategies to promote independent writing. Level 1 of this programme is available currently and subsequent levels are being developed.

The programme offers a complete set of lesson plans for the year with a Reading Comprehension Pupil Book, a Writing Skills Workbook, and a Teacher’s Book providing full support:

• A variety of texts to read and analyse (from stories to poems, recipes and news reports)
• An engaging mix of photos and illustrations
• Comprehension activities and questions to aid understanding
• Writing skills lessons and prompts to inspire ideas
• Step-by-step lesson plans
• Write-in workbooks to support children in their writing
• Continuous revision and consolidation of previous topics
• Further reading and extension suggestions

Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation in Jolly Classroom

We have also recently added Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation Year 1 lessons to our digital platform, Jolly Classroom. Jolly Classroom is your complete digital toolkit – with access to over 150 interactive phonics activities, lesson plans and teaching notes, and over 100 Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation Year 1 lessons, activities and teaching notes.

Are you interested in learning more about the Jolly Literacy programmes? Register for our April 2025 webinar or browse the range in our Shop!