Phonics
At Holy Family, our phonic teaching aims to ensure all children are fluent readers. By our children being able to confidently and fluently read we know that this will help them to access the rest of the curriculum.
Read, Write, Inc. Phonics is an inclusive programme for all children learning to read. Children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and how to blend them to read and spell. The use of pictures and memorable phrases is used to aid children’s retention and recall of phonemes for reading and spelling. The RWI sessions occur each day with no exceptions, as the continuity and pace of the programme is key to accelerating the progress of children’s reading development. .
Aims and Objectives
To teach children to:
- Apply the skill of blending phonemes in order to read words.
- Segment words into their constituent phonemes in order to spell words.
- Learn that blending and segmenting words are reversible processes.
- Read high frequency words that do not conform to regular phonic patterns.
- Read texts and words that are within their phonic capabilities as early as possible.
- Decode texts effortlessly so all their resources can be used to comprehend what they read.
The Read Write Inc. programme is for primary school children learning to read. At Holy Family Catholic Primary School the children will begin the programme in their last term of Nursery class and will remain on the programme until they are reading fluently with a good level of comprehension and speed. Our aim is for the majority of children to be off the scheme by the end of Year 1, however some children will remain on RWI higher up the school, if appropriate.
How does it work?
Nursery:
In the summer term before starting Reception class the children will be introduced to the RWI programme. They will firstly be introduced to the large set 1 picture cards so when they begin the daily phonic sessions in Reception they will use the pictures to learn the sounds.
Reception:
Children are first taught the pure ‘set 1 sounds’ so that they will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily. In School we call this ‘Fred Talk’. We do not use letter names at this stage; we simply focus on the sounds.
They are taught one sound a day and will be assessed regularly. Once the children are fluent in recognising and blending the first set of sounds the children will start to read a levelled reading book.
Years 1 and beyond:
The children will continue to learn and consolidate Set 2 & 3 sounds while reading the related story books.
The children will complete reading and writing activities for 30mins each day, grouped according to their reading level.
Children will be grouped according to their stage not their age, so classes will be mixed and taught by different teachers/learning support assistants.
Pupils work within ability groups which are defined by their performance on RWI phonic assessments.
Delivery of Phonics
Initial sounds are taught in a specific order.
Sounds taught should be ‘pure’ ie ‘f’, not ‘fuh’ as this is central to phonic teaching and ability to recognise sounds in words.
Children are to be taught that the number of graphemes in a word always corresponds to the number of phonemes. This greatly aids spelling.
Set 2 sounds are to be taught after Set 1 (initial sounds)
Letter names are to be introduced with Set 3.
Assessment and Recording
Children are assessed throughout every lesson. Every time partner work is used the teacher assesses the progress of the children. The teacher assesses how children:
- Read the grapheme chart.
- Read the green and red word lists;
- Decode the ditty/story.
- Comprehend the story.
Formal assessment is carried out each half term by the phonics lead to ensure consistency using the RWI online assessment tool. Any children who are high-lighted as not being on track have weekly Fast track tutoring. This is delivered by the classroom Learning support assistant who is a well-trained RWI practitioner.
Monitoring and Review
The RWI lead:
- Organises the assessment of all pupils accessing phonics and designates pupils to the correct groups.
- Assigns RWI practitioners to groups.
- Completes weekly ‘drop ins’ in RWI lessons to coach staff and to informally check that pupils are in the correct groups.
- Delivers a weekly practice session meetings to all RWI practitioners. During these weekly sessions updates to the programme are shared, targeted children are discussed and staff have the opportunity to practice certain aspects of the programme with each other.
- Attends meetings when they occur and reports back to all staff involved with delivering RWI.
- Speaks with the Head teacher and English lead regarding groupings, teaching spaces and other important matters.
- Is responsible for reporting to the governors about the quality of the implementation of RWI and the impact on standards.
Impact
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1.
Children who are new to their English reading journey on entry to our school will begin their phonics journey with initial sounds.