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Winsor Primary School

Phonics

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 program to help to teach 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 Winsor we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their reading. We have put together a guide to how the RWI programme works, together with some useful links.

Miss Thurlow is our Read Write Inc lead teacher, so if you have questions about RWI, contact year1@winsor.newham.sch.uk and she will get back to you. 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 reading 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 Winsor we begin the programme in Nursery and 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 https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parents/

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed regularly by our RWI lead teacher/familiar staff, so that they are grouped with children at the same level. This allows complete participation in lessons.

Nursery

We start exposing our pupils to high quality texts and develop their language through a range of practical activities. We expose our children to a wide range of vocabulary and give words a context. We believe that talking is a really important step before learning to read. When appropriate, children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short five minutes sessions.

Reception

In Reception, all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.

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
  • work well with partners
  • 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 

Talking

The children work in pairs so that they:

  • answer every question
  • practise every activity with their partner
  • take turns in talking and reading to each other
  • develop ambitious vocabulary

Year One & Year Two

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 30 minutes.  Once children become fluent speedy readers, they will move on to reading 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 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 following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q

The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.

Step 1

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


Please do not use letter names at this early stage.
 

Click here to hear how to pronounce sounds correctly:

https://youtu.be/0ssg4fNa-ro

Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.

Step 2

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)
       

 

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. Watch the video below for further information on the Screening check:

https://youtu.be/K5WN5bc9vsE

Step 3

Children will be introduced to ‘Ditty books’ when they successfully begin to read single words. The short vowels should be kept short and sharp:

Children use sound-blending (Fred Talk) to read short ditties. They will bring these home once they have read and discussed the book in class. Children will then be challenged to use their developing phonic knowledge to write short sentences.

Within all the books children will have 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 a sentence’

Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.

Order of Story books

Children will hopefully follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One as confident speedy readers, ready to take on the challenges of Year Two. However, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this. 

 

Books

Year Group Expectations

Green Words in Books

Red Ditty 1-10

Reception

Click here to help your child

Green 1-10

Reception

Click here to help your child

Purple 1-10

Year One

Click here to help your child

Pink 1-10

Year One

Click here to help your child

Orange 1-12

Year One

Click here to help your child

Yellow 1-10

Year One

Click here to help your child

Blue 1-10

Year One

Click here to help your child

Grey 1-13

Year One

Click here to help your child

To help at home

 Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers. Please help them to read and give lots of praise!

If you have any other questions about RWI, please see your class teacher or see Miss Thurlow.

Please watch the video below for more information on ways of supporting phonics learning at home.

RWI Google classroom

An RWI Google classroom has been set up with videos of mini sounds lessons taught by Miss Thurlow. Each sound lesson also has an activity where your child has to read a word and identify the picture that goes with the word. Each child in Year 1 and 2 has been sent an invitation to join the classroom. When you log into their account, click accept and you will be able to join the classroom and access the resources.

Phonics Screening Check Year One

What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?

The Year 1 Phonics Screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.

It will identify the children who need extra help, so that they are given support by their teachers to improve their reading skills. They will then be able to retake the check, so that the school can track pupils until they are able to decode.

Further information can be found in this video: https://youtu.be/K5WN5bc9vsE