Phonics

‘The most important starting point is to read to children. Reading to children is the best way of encouraging them to love books and reading.’
‘I don’t think there’s a big secret about what to do; we need to show children how much we love stories. Read great stories, poems and non-fiction every day, all through school. What we love today they might read tomorrow.’

Ruth Miskin

Intent

At Treloweth school we are committed to every child learning to read as quickly as possible. When the basics are embedded and automatic, subsequent learning becomes easier. We have high expectations of ourselves and seek to make rapid progress so that children are confident and fluent readers by the age of 6.

Our ultimate aims and objectives within the Read Write Inc programme are for the children to be able to learn and apply sound blending skills and segment words in order to be able to create skilled and confident readers. We strive for the children to crack the phonic code as soon as possible to that they change from learning to read, to reading to learn.

Both word recognition and language comprehension are crucial for fluent reading and understanding and access a broad and challenging wider curriculum as they progress through the school. Fluency includes automaticity, comprehension and decoding. We expect children to reread books at the level that is ‘just right’ for them and linked to their RWI level. We also provide books for family reading that further develop vocabulary, comprehension and reading for enjoyment that is more ambitious.

“By reading stories aloud to children every day, you are forming a link for them between reading, comfort and love. When you love a book, your children will want to hear it again and again! Children thrive on repetition, so when you’ve read Room on the Broom for the hundredth time, remember you are hardwiring their brains for success.”

(Ruth Miskin, 2019)

It is our ambition to foster a love of reading and the pleasure that books and literature can bring; to transport them into a world of rich discovery and imagination.

Implementation

We follow a systematic and inclusive approach to Read Write Inc. RWI sessions take place each day for all Reception and Year 1 children with no exceptions. The pace and consistency of the programme is a key element to developing reading skills for all children which is integral to access the rest of the school curriculum.

As children progress through the school they will learn all 44 sounds and corresponding letter groups. Pupils will learn the initial letter sounds and then matching graphemes as they progress through EYFS and Year 1. They are explicitly taught the skill of oral blending which is vital for the initial stages of early reading. Children will rapidly progress to blending sounds together to help them read CVC words. Children will learn diagraph and trigraph sounds throughout Early Years and KS1.

As children become confident at blending sounds, they are taught the skill of blending mentally and at speed by the use of the RWI system of ‘Fred in your head’. Children will be exposed to ‘alien’ words throughout reception and Year 1.

This consistent and rigorous approach will provide our children with the foundations to become enthused readers with a passion for storytelling, literature and vocabulary.
Children also learn to read and spell words that do not conform to regular phonetic patterns (High Frequency Words) and decode both fiction and nonfiction texts through discussion, performance and teacher led activities.

All pupils need to understand the alphabetic code if they are to become accurate readers and spellers. Some pupils with SEND may take a little longer to secure and embed knowledge of the alphabetic code.

From Year 2, once the children are fluent at decoding they progress onto developing their literacy and language in daily English lessons. The structure enables children to develop their comprehension, writing, critical thinking, discussion skills and also gain a firm knowledge and understanding of grammar.

At a glance

• Read, Write, Inc is our chosen scheme for teaching phonics
• EYFS and KS1 have a daily reading session and access RWI top-up time if required to ‘keep up, not catch-up’
• EYFS & Y1 have an additional phonics session each afternoon
• Lessons include a speed sounds session, reading green and red words, reading a text, answering comprehension questions and ‘holding a sentence’
• Information and support for parents can be found on our school website
• Resources go home to parents
• We offer after-school workshop information sessions
• Loom videos model good practice on the school website along with example lessons showing children learning to read and spell.