At Our Lady’s 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! 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
- 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
We use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) in EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 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. Mrs Sutton is our English lead teacher, so if you have questions about RWI, contact school who can refer you to her or to your child’s class teacher. Please take the time to read this invaluable information as it will help you to support your child with their reading.
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
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics 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. It also allows them to spell effortlessly so that they can put all their energy into composing what they write. The children are assessed and grouped according to their ability. Small group phonics lessons are taught daily by trained staff and there are consistent expectations across the range of abilities. At the end of each half term the children are assessed to check on their progress and regrouped.
Reading
When using RWI to read the children will:
- Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple prompts
- Learn to read words using sound blending (Fred talk – see below)
- Read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound out
- Show that they comprehend the stories by answering ‘Find It’ and ‘Prove It’
Writing
When using RWI to write the children will:
- Learn to write the letter/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds
- Learn to write words by saying the sounds and graphemes (Fred fingers)
Talking
When using RWI the children will also work in pairs:
- To answer questions
- To take turns talking and listening to each other
- To give positive praise to each other
Blending – Fred Talk
Help your child learn to read words by sounding-blending (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 more easily.
At school we use a frog 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.
The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q
Speed Sounds Sets 1, 2 and 3
The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.
Set 1 Sounds are taught in order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds – the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds.
Within all the RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.
Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.
During the RWI session children will read the book three times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold, edit or build a sentence’.
Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.
Build a sentence is to give children the opportunity to create their own sentence to that shows the meaning of a word and edit a sentence allows the children to critique a sentence using their knowledge of spelling punctuation and grammar. Children complete a longer piece of independent writing, which gives them the opportunity to show off their creativity and to practice their spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Nonsense words (Alien words)- What ‘a load’ or nonsense!
As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term. These words provide endless opportunities for children to apply and practice their thinking in a range of different contexts.
Click here to see the Progression of Skills from EYFS
To help at home:
Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers, relating to their reading stage.
You will find they will bring home a phonics based book from our Book Bag Books scheme, this will aid application, speed and fluency- developing speedy reading!
More information about reading at home can be found on our Reading Webpage
Home practice cards – a copy of the set 1 sounds used in school for you to print out and practice at home.
Parents and carers can access 27 Read Write Inc. Phonics eBook titles for extra practice with their children at home, plus three Fresh Start Anthologies. 62 Speed Sound Practice Sheets are also available to download.
Click the link to access free resources and videos as well as a Parent’s Guide to RWI
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
