St Peter's CofE Primary School
"Every Child a Success"
St Peter's CofE Primary School
"Every Child a Success"
Phonics
'Reading changes everything. Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and we will change everything. And I mean everything. Jeanette Winterson.'
At St Peter’s C of E Primary School we passionately believe this and that with the right support all children can and will learn how to read. To ensure this happens we want to give our children the best start possible and we do this by teaching reading through Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI).
We want our children to learn how to read quickly and accurately and then to keep on reading throughout our school. We believe that children who are read to regularly and who love to read will have the best opportunity and start in life. More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.
What is Read Write Inc?
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a consistent and rigorous programme which helps all children learn to read. RWI teaches children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter and spell correctly.
Children learn the English alphabetic code: first they learn one way to read the 40+ sounds and blend these sounds into words, then they learn to read the same sounds with alternative graphemes.
The RWI programme has been proven to be a successful method of teaching early reading skills. All children in Year R, Year 1 and Year 2 will follow the programme. Children are grouped as soon as they learn the Set 1 Sounds and then assessed every half term by our Phonic lead Miss Loveridge.
At St Peter’s we teach Phonics every morning for 40 minutes. The children learn a sound a day. Once the children have learnt the first five sounds they blend these sounds to help them read words.
The programme is progressive with the Set 1 Sounds taught first. Once the children are secure they are then taught the Set 2 and 3 sounds respectively.
Each sound has a rhyme which is taught alongside it.
The Set 1 Sound rhymes support letter formation and are taught in Reception class. These are the short vowel sounds. The short vowel sound says the letter sound.
The Set 2 and 3 Sounds are the long vowel sounds. The long vowel says the letter name. A rhyme is also taught alongside these 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.
To help at home:
Your child will start to bring RWI phonic books home when they are confident readers and are able to read the books using their phonic knowledge. It is important that you support your child to say the sounds correctly and then blend them to read.
Miss Loveridge is our Read Write Inc lead teacher. If you have any questions about RWI, please contact the school office who can refer you to her.