Read Write Inc. Phonics

Reading at Wildground Federation

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 Wildground 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.

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 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, 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.

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

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents-copy-2            

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed every half term. The RWI leaders then collect the assessments and track progress. The children are then regrouped accordingly and any children who are not making the expected progress will receive extra support to help them succeed.  

Nursery

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

Reception

In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.

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

Talking

The children 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 One and 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 35 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

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=dEzfpod5w_Q

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.

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.

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 words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term. 

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. 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.

 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, due to children missing their education, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this. 

To help at home:

Please listen to your child read and give lots of praise!

If you have any other questions about RWI, please contact the school and we will be happy to help.

Phonics Screening Check Year One

What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?

The Year 1 phonics screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.

It will identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills. They will then be able to retake the check in year 2 so that schools can track pupils until they are able to decode

Cued Articulation 

Alongside RWI, we use an approach called cued articulation.  Cued articulation is a set of hand cues for teaching the individual sounds in a word. The hand movements are logical – each hand movement represents one sound and the cue gives clues as to how and where the sound is produced.  (It is not a sign language where the whole word is signed – but cued articulation can be used alongside sign language. Cued articulation should not be confused with ‘Cued Speech’.)

Literacy and Language Group

Once children have gained a confidence in recognising, reading and applying all sounds through RWI and have developed their accuracy and competence with reading, they become part of our Literacy and Language group. This takes place daily and enables children to be challenged in deepening their comprehension skills, their fluency and their use of expression when reading. Part of the session is focussed on developing spelling, understanding rules and applying these accurately.