Read Write Inc - Phonics

At Harris Primary Academy Kent House 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 program to help to 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 Harris Primary Academy Kent House we use Read Write Inc. Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their reading and writing. We have put together a guide to how the RWI programme works together with some useful links. Mrs Dale & Miss Campbell are our Read Write Inc. leaders, so if you have questions about the teaching of phonics, please contact school who can refer you to them. 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 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 HPAKH 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/en/parents-copy-2/

 

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed half termly by our RWI lead teachers, so they work with small groups of children at the same level. This allows complete participation in lessons.

Nursery

When appropriate, children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short five minutes sessions. Towards the end of the academic year, the children will begin to blend sounds together to read words, if ready.

Reception

In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. As soon as they join our school, Reception children are taught in small groups to ensure that the teaching of phonics has a large impact to their early learning.

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

Talking

The children work in pairs so that they:

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

Year 1 & Year 2

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 forty minutes.  Once children become fluent speedy readers, they will move on to whole class reading lessons to further develop their comprehension.  This typically happens during Year 2.

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.

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.

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.

Set 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 Sounds

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
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
z	Zig-zag-zig, down the zip
x	Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way
sh	Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
th	Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
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
ng	A thing on a string
nk	I think I stink

Please do not use letter names at this early stage.

Before you start to teach your child, practise saying the sounds below. This film can help you with your pronunciation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXcabDUg7Q

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

Set 2 & Set 3

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 Sounds Teach these before Set 3	Set 3 Sounds
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	oa – goat in a boat
oo	oo – poo at the zoo	u-e – oo what a 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 – care and share
ir	ir – whirl and twirl	ur – nurse with a purse	er – a better letter
ou	ou – shout it out
oy	oy – spoil the boy
ire		ire – fire fire!
ear		ear – hear with your ear
ure		ure – sure it’s pure?

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

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 1 Phonics Screening check in the summer term.

Starting to read

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-four times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. This repeated reading also allows children to develop fluency and characterisation.

Phonics Screening Check Year 1

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 and takes place during the summer term.

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