Phonics Scheme

At Our Lady and St. Anne’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! 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 Our Lady and St. Anne’s 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.

Mrs Milligan is our Read Write Inc lead teacher, so if you have questions about RWI, 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.

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

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/

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 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
  • 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

  • They 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 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 45 minutes.  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 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=MNyFikwNQTg

 

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 find out how to pronounce the ‘pure’ sounds.

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 are made up of the sounds the children are learning e.g. d-u-t (dut), d-oi-n (doin), h-e-sh (hesh).

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, 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.

Spelling

Spelling will only start in Reception when children are ready to write and form their letters.  Children will use first use ‘Fred fingers’ to first sound out a word before they write it down.  Children learn how to spell rather than just get tested. Furthermore, this way of teaching spellings allows children to use Fred fingers whenever they get stuck with spelling a word. Children pinch each sound on fingers before writing the word.

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

Green Words in Books

Red Ditty 1-10

 Click here to help your child

Green 1-10

 Click here to help your child

Purple 1-10

 Click here to help your child

Pink 1-10

 Click here to help your child

Orange 1-12

Click here to help your child

Yellow 1-10

Click here to help your child

Blue 1-10

Click here to help your child

Grey 1-13

Click here to help your child