Read Write Inc. Phonics

Read Write Inc Phonics at Whitgreave

We are determined that every child at Whitgreave will learn to read with accuracy and fluency.

At the core of the programme is the consistent and systematic teaching the phonetic code. Children first learn to read the single letter sounds, using picture hooks to help remember them. We teach them to ‘get speedy’; reading these sounds as soon as they see them! As they learn to read the sounds, they also learn how to form letters correctly, using a special handwriting phrase. As well as learning to read sounds speedily, children are taught to orally blend sounds into words. They soon learn that if they blend the sounds ‘c…a…t…’ they can hear the word ‘cat’. Once children have learnt the single letter Set 1 sounds, they move on to learn to read ‘special friends’ (2 or 3 letters, one sound e.g. ‘sh’).

The children have the pleasure of reading storybooks perfectly matched to their phonetic knowledge; this ensures success every time. The children follow a structured programme of reading and writing activities in small groups. All staff at Whitgreave have been trained in the delivery of this programme.

Children are assessed and placed in progress groups meaning they get the right teaching at the right time. Tight tracking by our Reading Lead, Miss Thornbery, ensures that all pupils make progress. Any pupil not keeping up, is swiftly identified and extra practice they need to ‘keep up’ is put in place.

Children in our Nursery are taught to:

• differentiate between environmental sounds i.e. naming the sound they can hear without seeing the object that made it
• effectively explore body percussion i.e. clapping, stamping etc.
• find rhyming words i.e. cat, mat, sat, bat
• hear the initial sounds in words when they are spoken i.e. ‘t’ in ‘tin’ or ‘c’ in ‘can’

This ensures that they have all of the basic skills in place in order to help them to become effective readers.

Fred Talk

This is Fred the frog.

He helps us to hear the ‘sounds’ in a word. Fred can only say the sounds in a word, which he whispers to the adult, and needs the children’s help to say the word! For example, Fred will say the sounds p-o-t, and children will say the word ‘pot’. This is Fred talk: sounding out the word. As children learn to blend sounds to read words, we also teach them to segment words to spell using their ‘Fred fingers’ to help them.

Parental Support

In the Autumn term, Whitgreave Staff will hold parent workshops to support you in helping you with your child’s Phonics at home. It’s of paramount importance that we;

• Pronounce all sounds correctly
• Share a story every day together

There’s a wealth of sessions available online. We would urge you to watch these as often as possible to keep them fresh in your mind. They are available at:

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDe74j1F52zSCiOMSn3zQDSzgu9TrbQ1c
• https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/
• https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/

Click here for the handwriting rhymes that we will use in school, when supporting children in writing the sounds.

Click here for Parent Support booklet 1.

Click here for Parent Support booklet 2.

Phonics Glossary

As parents, it’s important to make sure that we understand the key terms in phonics so that we can carry on the good work our child has done at school at home!

Blend: this is when you say the individual sounds that make up a word and then merge or blend them together to say the word as used when reading.

Consonant: most letters of the alphabet are consonants, except for the vowels: a,e,i,o,u.

CVC Words: this is an abbreviation used for consonant-vowel-consonant words. It describes the order of sounds. Some examples of CVC words are: cat, pen, top, chat (because ch makes one sound).

Other similar abbreviations include:

• VC (Vowel Consonant) words e.g. on, is, it.
• CCVC (Consonant, Consonant, Vowel, Consonant) words e.g. trap and black.
• CVCC (Consonant, Vowel, Consonant, Consonant) words e.g. milk and fast.

Digraph: this describes two letters which together make one sound e.g. ee, oa, ea, ch, ay. There are different types of digraph:

• Vowel digraph: a digraph in which at least one of the letters is a vowel: boat or day.
• Consonant digraph: two consonants which can go together: shop or thin.
• Split digraph (previously called magic e): two letters, which work as a pair to make one sound, but are separated within the word e.g. a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e. For example cake or pine.

Grapheme: it’s a written letter or a group of letters which represent one single sound (phoneme) e.g. a, l, sh, air, ck.

Phoneme: it’s a single sound that can be made by one or more letters – e.g. s, k, z, oo, ph, igh.

Pure Sound: it’s the skill of pronouncing each letter sound clearly and distinctly without adding additional sounds to the end e.g. ‘f’ not ‘fuh.’

Segment: it’s the opposite of blending as it means splitting a word up into individual sounds when spelling and writing.

Tricky Words: they’re the words that are difficult to sound out e.g. said, the, because which don’t follow phonics rules.

High Frequency Words: high frequency words are those which appear most often in the language – many are also common exception words (e.g. ‘I’, ‘the’, ‘you’). Children are taught to learn these words by sight in order to increase the Fluency of their reading.

Common Exception Words: common exception words are words in which the English Spelling code works in an unusual or uncommon way. They are not words for which phonics ‘doesn’t work’, but they may be exceptions to spelling rules, or words which use a particular combination of letters to represent sound patterns in a rare or unique way.

Trigraph: this is when three letters go together to make one sound e.g. ear, air, igh, dge, tch.

Vowel: the letters a, e, i, o, u.

How does Read Write Inc. meet the National Curriculum?