Phonics
“Phonics gives children the building blocks they need to become confident, fluent readers.”
English Curriculum Rationale - Implementation & Impact : Phoncis
At St. Sebastian’s, we recognise the importance of embedding early reading to ensure our children have every opportunity to access the whole curriculum as they grow. The National Curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils can ‘read easily, fluently and with good understanding.’
Implementation
At St. Sebastian’s, early reading is taught using a systematic synthetic approach through the Read Write Inc programme.
Our children begin their reading journey as soon as they enter our Nursery. We recognise the importance of developing children’s speaking and listening skills at the very beginning. Teachers in our Foundation Unit ensure they plan ample opportunities for our children to become attuned to the sounds around them in both our indoor and outdoor learning spaces. This is where we lay the foundations for the blending and segmenting phonic work to come.
Daily time is allocated to the teaching of phonics in our school. Children are grouped according to their phonic knowledge, enabling the teaching to target the needs of children specifically. The lessons follow the same teaching sequence in every group: revisiting previous learning, acquiring new learning about phonic sounds and finally practising and applying. In Early Years and KS1, we have a fully established system which ensures the effective teaching of all phonic sounds within words and also the common exception words (known as red words in RWI).
At the early stages of reading, decodable reading materials are closely matched to the learner’s phonics knowledge as they build phoneme/grapheme correspondence. Children develop the skill of blending the sounds into words for reading and establish the habit of applying this skill whenever they encounter new words. Teachers give pupils sufficient practice to embed these skills in reading and re-reading books they know, both at school and at home. Our children are encouraged to make use of phonic strategies when taking part in all reading and writing activities throughout the curriculum.
Half-termly phonics assessments inform teachers of progress and give opportunities to reorganise groups being taught. The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check allows us to identify each individual child’s progress, making sure they are on track to become fluent readers who can enjoy reading for pleasure and for learning. Children in lower Key Stage 2 who did not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Key Stage 1 will remain on the Read Write Inc programme and access tutoring to further develop their word reading and fluency. Fast Track Tutoring and Virtual Classroom Speed Sound Lessons ensure each child is accessing the most suitable and effective intervention for them.
Opportunities for CPD throughout the year ensure our staff are equipped with the most relevant curriculum updates and feel confident in their planning and delivery of phonics throughout the school. Throughout the year we communicate with our parents in EYFS and KS1 regarding the RWI programme to ensure there is consistency in our approach to the teaching and learning of phonics and that our parents understand the expectations in every year group as their child learns to read.
Impact
We believe our children will:
- Demonstrate a clear understanding of phoneme/grapheme correspondence
- Use their knowledge of sounds to de-code new words that they hear or see
- Use and apply all of their phonic knowledge to achieve a pass mark in the Phonics Screening Check
- Develop their skills in order to read any kind of text fluently and accurately
- Confidently apply their phonic knowledge when reading and writing in all areas of the curriculum
Read Write Inc Phonics
We are proud to share our early reading programme: Read Write Inc.
First, it teaches children to read sounds and then how to blend the sounds to read words. The video below explains how the programme works.
Below you will find a video to introduce you to Read Write Inc.
Read Write Inc. Introduction
Throughout the programme the children:
- Learn how to pronounce the 44 sounds (single letters, groups of letters) in the English language
- Learn how to form letters correctly using child-friendly patters e.g. Maisie, mountain, mountain for ‘m’
- Learn to read tricky/red words by sight recognition
- Learn how to blend sounds together in order to read e.g. d-o-g becomes dog
- Read a hand-picked selection of a range of fiction and non-fiction books independently and with a reading partner
- Learn how to pronounce and therefore accurately blend ‘silly friends’ e.g. br, sl, scr
- Develop their comprehension skills through careful and age-appropriate questioning
- Click on the link below to see a wide variety of videos for how you can support your child with their reading at home.
ReadWriteInc - Guide for Families
ReadWriteInc - Supporting Phonics at Home
ReadWriteInc - FAQs
How we teach reading – answers for parents
The Read Write Inc. Phonics programme
We have written this for parents. It explains how we teach reading using the Read Write Inc. programme. Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.
How will my child be taught to read?
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are.
The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.
The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps their writing.
How will I know how well my child is doing?
We will always let you know how well your child is doing.
We use various ways to find out how the children are getting on in reading. We use the information to decide what reading group they should be in. Your child will work with children who are at the same reading level as him or her. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress than the others. Your child will have one-to-one support if we think he or she needs some extra help to keep up.
We also use a reading test so that we can make sure that all our children are at the level that they should be for their age compared to all the children across the country.
In the summer term, the government asks us to do a phonics check on all the Year 1 children. That gives us extra information about their progress. We will talk to you about how well your child has done, and especially if we have any worries at all.
How long will it take to learn to read well?
By the end of Year 2, your child should be able to read aloud books that are at the right level for his or her age. In Year 3, we concentrate more on helping children to understand what they are reading, although this work begins very early on. This happens when the teacher reads to the children and also when the children read their own story book.
How do I know the teaching will be good?
All the staff have been trained to teach reading in the way we do it in this school. We believe that it is very important that all teachers and teaching assistants work in the same way. Senior teachers watch other teachers teaching to make sure that the children are learning in the way we want them to learn.
If you are worried about teaching, or you have any questions, please come to school and talk to us.
What can I do to help? Is there anything that I shouldn't do?
We would have loved to invite you into school for a meeting to introduce you to Read Write Inc and the essential aspect of your role as parent. Unfortunately due to the circumstances of the pandemic this currently will not be possible. We are therefore providing all information and relevant material on our school website.
It is essential that you refer to all training material as this way you will fully understand the huge benefits of this programme and the potential for all the children to make huge leaps in their reading.
Your child will bring different sorts of books home from school. It helps if you know whether this is a book that your child can read on their own or whether this is a book that you should read to them. The teacher will have explained which is which. Please trust your child’s teacher to choose the book(s) that will help your child the most. Help your child to sound out the letters in words and then to ‘push’ the sounds together to make a whole word. Try not to refer to the letters by their names. Help your child to focus on the sounds. You can hear how to say the sounds correctly at this link: https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/#lg=1&slide=2
Sometimes your child might bring home a picture book that they know well. Please don’t say, ‘This is too easy.’ Instead, encourage your child to tell you the story out loud; ask them questions about things that happen or what they think about some of the characters in the story.
We know parents and carers are very busy people. But if you can find time to read to your child as much as possible, it helps him or her to learn about books and stories. They also learn new words and what they mean. Show that you are interested in reading yourself and talk about reading as a family.
You can find out about good stories to read to your child here: https://www.facebook.com/miskin.education
Does it matter if my child misses a lesson or two?
It matters a lot if your child misses school. The way we teach children to read is very well organised, so even one missed lesson means that your child has not learnt something that they need to know to be a good reader.
What if he or she finds it difficult to learn to read?
We want children to learn to read, however long it takes us to teach them. We will find out very quickly if your child is finding reading difficult. First, we move children to a different group, so that we can make sure that they have learnt what they need to know. If they still struggle, we give them extra time with an adult, on their own. These adults are specially trained to support these children. Your child will still be in the same group with the other children and won’t miss out on any of the class lessons.
If we have any serious worries about your child’s reading, we will talk to you about this.
Some children take a bit longer to learn to put sounds together to read a word, e.g. c-a-t to make the word ‘cat’. At our meeting, we will explain how you can help your child to do this.
What if my child turns out to be dyslexic?
The way we teach reading is especially helpful for children who might be dyslexic. This is because we use a very well-organised programme that has a strong focus on phonics. This is very important for children who find learning to read difficult. If you are worried about your child, please come and talk to us.
My child has difficulty pronouncing some sounds. Will this stop him learning to read through phonics?
This isn’t a problem for learning to read as long as we know what sound the child is trying to say. This is not something to worry about. Many children have a few sounds that they can hear clearly but find it difficult to say, particularly the l-sound, r-sound, w-sound, th-sound, s-sound, sh-sound and j-sound. Often they say a t-sound for the c-sound; "tttssh" for the s-sound; "w" for the r-sound and "r" for the l-sound. You can help your child by encouraging him or her to look at your mouth when you say the sound. Whatever you do, do not make your child feel a failure. They can easily learn to read, even if they find one or two sounds difficult to say.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns. We are here to help.