Phonics and Reading

Phonics and Reading

Reading feeds the imagination, it expands horizons and offers new and exciting ways of seeing and making sense of our lives and of the world around us. - Michael Morpurgo

READ WRITE INC.

At Melling St Wilfrid Primary School, we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident readers who are passionate about reading.

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds! More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners. We can achieve this together through:

• Read Write Inc, a programme to help your child read at school.

• Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school.

• Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

At Tatham Fells  we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their literacy. We have put together a guide to how the RWI programme works together with some useful links.

Please take the time to read the information as it will provide invaluable information as to how you can help and support your child in reading.

What is Read Write Inc?

Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics and literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.  The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. However, we will continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7 if they still need support in their reading.

RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed regularly by our RWI lead teachers so they work with children at the same level. This allows complete participation in lessons.

Nursery

Children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short five-minute sessions.

Reception

In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. Those who are ready will begin to read and write simple words within books.

Reading

The children:

• learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below

• learn to read words using Fred talk and sound blending

• read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge

• develop comprehension skills in stories by answering ‘Find It’ and ‘Prove It’ discussion questions

Writing

The children:

• learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases

• learn to write words by using Fred Talk

• learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write

Year 1 and above

Children follow the same format as Reception but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Daily sessions of RWI phonics last for one hour.  Once children become fluent speedy readers they will move on to literacy lessons.

Five key principles underpin the teaching in all Read Write Inc. sessions: 

Purpose – know the purpose of every activity and share it with the children, so they know the one thing they should be thinking about

Participation – ensure every child participates throughout the lesson. Partnership work is fundamental to learning

Praise – ensure children are praised for effort and learning, not ability

Pace – teach at an effective pace and devote every moment to teaching and learning

Passion – be passionate about teaching so children can be engaged emotionally.

Children will be taught how to read as follows:

Before you start to teach your child, practise saying the sounds below. These are the sounds we use to speak in English.

Fred Talk

We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words

At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.

Read,write inc for parents

Following on from Read, write inc….

When children have learned and understood phonics and can decode fluently they are ready to move onto reading a wide range of books. We still hear children read frequently and assess their progress half termly. We use the accelerated reader scheme -children take a reading quiz to check their understanding after reading a fiction or non fiction book. The vast majority of children’s books have quizzes available.

Please click on the link to access Melling School’s accelerated reader scheme

.Accelerated reader