Phonics at Palmarsh

At Palmarsh Primary School 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
• ‘Happy Talk’ and ‘Adventure Island’ – an approach to Phase 1 phonics and the adventure of learning to add an extra layer of magic to our phonics teaching. Created by Greg Bottrill, it is an immersion into language, story and song.

At Palmarsh we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their Literacy development. 

What is Read Write Inc?

Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics programme which helps 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, using 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.  From these assessments children are grouped into stages, where they work with peers on the same stage.  

Nursery & Reception

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

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

• They 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. Once children become fluent speedy readers they will move on to our schools Spelling Programme.

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

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 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. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold a sentence’.

Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling 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.

Useful websites for Parents

Please find a list of websites that you may find useful in helping you and your child  learn about phonics. Games and fun activity websites are also included.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/ - Information and resources to support phonics learning at home

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/ - fun games for the children to play

http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html  - fun games for the children to play

http://www.firstschoolyears.com/  - fun games for the children to play

BBC Bitesize - many games to play covering all areas of the curriculum