‘The more you read, the more things you will know. The more you know, the more places you will go.”
Dr Seuss
Children who read regularly or are read to regularly are being provided 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:
At Monkhouse Primary, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their reading development. We have chosen Read Write Inc to provide a daily synthetic and systematic programme which allows us to teach phonics in an interactive and engaging way. The expectation is that all children will become fluent readers and have secure word building and recognition skills by the end of Key Stage 1. Mrs Williams is our Read Write Inc lead, so if you have questions about RWI and the teaching of phonics, contact school who can refer you to her.
What is Read Write Inc?
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete 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, at MHPS we begin the programme in Nursery and will continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7, as we use a stage not age approach. RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
How will RWI be taught?
All children are assessed regularly by our RWI lead. From these assessments children are grouped into stages, where they work with peers on the same stage.
Nursery & Reception
When appropriate, children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short five minutes sessions.
In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.
Reading
The children:
Writing
The children:
Talking
The children work in pairs so that they:
Progressing through the stages
Children follow the same format as Early Years, but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Daily sessions of RWI phonics last 30 minutes
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, practice saying the sounds below. These are the sounds we use to speak in English and we use the pure sounds to support sound blending for reading. Children initially begin using pictures for each sound, this will help children recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
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 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 children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.
Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
Set 1 |
|
Sound |
Rhyme |
m |
Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain. |
a |
Round the apple, down the leaf. |
s |
Slide around the snake |
d |
Round the dinosaur's back, up his neck and down to his feet. |
t |
Down the tower, across the tower, |
i |
Down the insects body, dot for the head. |
n |
Down Nobby and over the net. |
p |
Down the plait, up and over the pirates face. |
g |
Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl |
o |
All around the orange |
c |
Curl around the caterpillar |
k |
Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg |
u |
Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle |
b |
Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel |
f |
Down the stem and draw the leaves |
e |
Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg |
l |
Down the long leg |
h |
Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
sh |
Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
r |
Down the robot's back, then up and curl |
j |
Down his body, curl and dot |
v |
Down a wing, up a wing |
y |
Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head. |
w |
Down, up, down, up the worm. |
th |
Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back |
z |
Zig-zag-zig, down the zip. |
ch |
Curl around the caterpillar, , then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
qu |
Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl |
x |
Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way |
ng |
A thing on a string |
nk |
I think I stink |
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.
Long vowel sound |
Set 2 Speed Sound cards Teach these first |
Set 3 Speed Sound cards |
|
ay |
ay: may I play |
a-e: make a cake |
ai: snail in the rain |
ee |
ee: what can you see |
ea: cup of tea |
e: he me we she be |
igh |
igh: fly high |
i-e: nice smile |
|
ow |
ow: blow the snow |
o-e: phone home |
ao: goat in a boat |
oo |
oo: poo at the zoo |
u-e: huge brute |
ew: chew the stew |
oo |
oo: look at a book |
|
|
ar |
ar: start the car |
|
|
or |
or: shut the door |
aw: yawn at dawn |
|
air |
air: that’s not fair |
are: share and care |
|
ir |
ir: whirl and twirl |
ur: nurse for a purse |
er: a better letter |
ou |
ou: shout it out |
ow: brown cow |
|
oy |
oy: toy for a boy |
oi: spoil the boy |
|
ire |
|
ire: fire fire! |
|
ear |
|
ear: hear with your ear |
|
ure |
|
ure: sure it’s pure? |
|
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.
Within all the RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to red and green words to learn to help them to become confident and fluent readers. Red words are words that are not decodable and our children soon become familiar with the phrase, “you can’t Fred a red”. Children will also access challenge words to extend their 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.
To help at home:
As part of our phonics programme, each child will take home a weekly RWInc home reader which will be within their phonic decoding capabilities. This further develops consistency in phonics and reading with children accessing comparable texts linked to the text they are reading in school. Parents are encouraged to listen to their children reading these books a few times across the week, to support fluency and familiarity with the text, and ask questions on the text to support their understanding. These will be changed weekly by the RWInc group leader. Where children are not accessing whole texts, they will receive a RWInc blending book which encourages them to blend cvc words initially. This would usually be across some of EYFS i.e. Summer term Nursery and into Autumn term Reception year. By establishing consistent practice across school from the earliest stage, we aim to support this consistent practice at home.
Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers of sounds and words, relating to their reading stage. You will find they will bring home a phonics based book, this will aid application, speed and fluency - developing confident decoders for reading! Children should be able to read the RWInc home reading book independently and feel confident to apply their phonic knowledge to decode and read fluently.
Useful websites for Parents
Please find a list of websites that you may find useful in helping you and your child learn about phonics. Games and fun activity websites are also included.
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/ - Information and resources to support phonics learning at home
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/ - fun games for the children to play
http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html - fun games for the children to play
http://www.firstschoolyears.com/ - fun games for the children to play
BBC Bitesize - many games to play covering all areas of the curriculum