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 Mayflower, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their Literacy development. Miss Timms is our Read Write Inc lead teacher, so if you have questions about RWI, contact school who can refer you to her. 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 systematic synthetic 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, at Mayflower, we begin the programme in Reception and will continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7, as we use a stage not age approach. RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
How will RWI be taught?
All children are assessed regularly by our RWI lead teacher. From these assessments children are grouped into stages, where they work with peers on the same stage.
Early Years
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
Learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write
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
Progressing through the stages
Children follow the same format as Early Years, but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Daily sessions of RWI phonics last 30 minutes. Once children become fluent speedy readers they will move on to the RWI Spelling programme.
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, practice saying the sounds below. These are the sounds we use to speak in English. Children initially begin using pictures for each sound, this will help children recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
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.
Set 1 | |
Sound | Rhyme |
m | Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain. |
a | Around the apple, down the leaf. |
s | Slither down the snake |
d | Round the dinosaur's bottom, up his tall neck and down to his feet. |
t | Down the tower, across the tower, |
i | Down the insects body, dot for the head. |
n | Down Nobby and over his net. |
p | Down the pirates’ plait, up and over the his face. |
g | Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl |
o | All around the orange |
c | Curl around the caterpillar |
k | Down the kangaroos body, round his bottom and whoosh down his tail |
u | Under the umbrella, up to the top and splash in the puddle |
b | Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel |
f | Down the stem and draw the leaves |
e | Slice, lift off the top and scoop out the egg |
l | Down the long leg |
h | Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
sh | Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
r | Down the robot's back, then curl over his arm |
j | Down his body, curl and dot |
v | Down a wing, up a wing |
y | Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head. |
w | Down, up, down, up the worm. |
th | Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back |
z | Zig-zag-zig, down the zip. |
ch | Curl around the caterpillar, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
qu | Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl |
x | Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way |
ng | A thing on a string |
nk | I think I stink |
At this stage we do not use the letter names
Use the link below to hear how to pronounce the sounds correctly.
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/#lg=1&slide=3
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.
Long vowel sound | Set 2 Speed Sound cards | Set 3 Speed Sound cards | |
ay | ay: may I play | a-e: make a cake | ai: snail in the rain |
ee | ee: what can you see | ea: cup of tea | e: he me we she be |
igh | igh: fly high | i-e: nice smile | |
ow | ow: blow the snow | o-e: phone home | ao: goat in a boat |
oo | oo: poo at the zoo | u-e: huge brute | ew: chew the stew |
oo | oo: look at a book |
|
|
ar | ar: start the car |
|
|
or | or: shut the door | aw: yawn at dawn |
|
air | air: that’s not fair | are: share and care |
|
ir | ir: whirl and twirl | ur: nurse for a purse | er: a better letter |
ou | ou: shout it out | ow: brown cow |
|
oy | oy: toy for a boy | oi: spoil the boy |
|
ire |
| ire: fire fire! |
|
ear |
| ear: hear with your ear |
|
ure |
| ure: sure it’s pure? |
|
Nonsense words/Alien words - What a load of nonsense!
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. These words provide endless opportunities for children to apply and practice their thinking in a range of different contexts.
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. Children will then be challenged to use their developing phonic knowledge to write short sentences.
Within all the RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable ("You can't Fred a red") 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.
Once your child has been introduced and taught these words in school, we will send them home for you to continue practising with your child. 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. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold or build a sentence’.
Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.
Build a sentence is to give children the opportunity to create their own sentence to that shows the meaning of a word and edit a sentence allows the children to critique a sentence using their knowledge of spelling punctuation and grammar. Children complete a longer piece of independent writing, which gives them the opportunity to show off their creativity and to practice their spelling, grammar and punctuation.
To help at home:
Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers, relating to their reading stage. You will find they will bring home a phonics based book, this will aid application, speed and fluency - developing speedy reading! Following on from this, they will bring a comprehension based book which will begin to enrich their reading, which will require decoding skills. Only then, children will bring home enriched reading books which will enhance their understanding via inspirational language promoting depth to their understanding.
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, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this.
Books | Year Group Expectations |
Red Ditty 1-10 | Reception |
Green 1-10 | Reception |
Purple 1-10 | Reception |
Pink 1-10 | Reception/Year One |
Orange 1-12 | Year One |
Yellow 1-10 | Year One |
Blue 1-10 | Year One/Two |
Grey 1-13 | Year One/Two |