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 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 Sir Francis Hill, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their Literacy and English. We have put together a guide to how the RWI programme works, together with some useful links.

Miss Ford is our Phonics lead teacher, so if you have questions about phonics, contact the school who can refer you to her. 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 SFH 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.

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed every half-term throughout the year by our RWI lead teacher, so they work with children at the same level. This allows complete participation in lessons and for the children to make accelerated progress when de-coding and reading words.

Nursery

When appropriate, children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short five-minute sessions.

Reception

In Reception, all children will learn how to ‘read’ single set 1 sounds. They then learn to read the sounds in words. The children will learn how those sounds can be written down using their 'perfect pencil grip'.

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-fiction 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 verbally rehearsing their sentences before they write them down

Talking

The children

They work in pairs so that they:

• Answer every question
• Practise every activity with their partner
• Take turns 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 60 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, practise saying the sounds below. These are the sounds we use to speak in English.

Fred Talk

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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 at 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.

Please watch this video to see how you can support your child with sound blending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8vuje-wMQw

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.

Please do not use letter names at this early stage.

Please see the video below to learn how to pronounce the sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUbrJPAt65g

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

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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.

Nonsense words (Alien words)

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As well as learning to read and blend real words, children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills to reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term.Click herefor further information on the Screening check.

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.

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Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.

Once your child has been introduced and taught these words in school, we will send them home for you to continue practising with your child.

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.

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.

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 Ford.