Phonics and Early Reading
At Roundhay we use the Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme to get children off to a flying start with their reading and writing. RWI is a rigorous and structured programme which integrates phonics, comprehension, writing, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and handwriting. We follow this programme with absolute fidelity to ensure that our children get out of the reading gateway as quickly as possible. The programme is now securely embedded at Roundhay, and it has helped us to create a consistent approach across our school as we all work together to ensure our children are confident readers and writers.
We are proud of our phonics teaching at Roundhay: 100% of our Year 1 pupils in the last full academic year achieved the expected standard putting us in the top 2% of schools nationally. Our mission is to ensure that every child ‘gets out of the reading gate’ as soon as possible as reading unlocks a child’s learning across our broad and ambitious curriculum.
Please visit Ruth Miskin’s website for parents to find out more about our wonderful programme…
Intent
RWI is a carefully structured systematic, synthetic, phonics programme designed for pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. The alphabetic code is taught in a certain order to ensure that chidren learn to read and write grapheme/phoneme correspondences accurately and fluently. Children learn to read and write sounds in this order:
Once children become speedy at reading the first five sounds taught in Reception, they begin their journey to becoming independent blenders when reading words. We teach them how to use their reading routine (‘Special Friends, Fred Talk, Read the Word’) to read words accurately, build their fluency and become speedy word readers at each stage of the programme. Children then read matched texts, which only contain the sounds that they can read accurately. This means that your child will love bringing home their reading book and showing you what they have been learning in school. We ask that you support them in building their fluency at home by re-reading texts each day to develop their fluency, expression and their understanding of what they are reading.
Please see below some useful documents when supporting your child on this important learning journey. rwi-phonics-structure-chart
Implementation
Children in Reception have a daily phonics lesson for 20 minutes in the first half term. They work really hard to learn the first 25 sounds and begin to practice blending sounds to make words. Once they can read words, they will begin to bring home thier reading books to practise their reading routine. As the year progresses phonics lessons increase to 60 minutes by the end of their first year. In each lesson, children will learn/review a sound, read sounds speedily, read real and nonsense words, spell with Fred Fingers, complete reading acitvities linked to their matched storybook and complete linked writing activities to secure their growing understanding of the alphabetic code.
Your child may come home talking about Fred! Fred can only speak in sounds so when your child comes to an unfamiliar word they may need Fred’s help to ‘Fred Talk’ and sometimes they help Fred to blend the sounds to make words. All of our Reading Teachers have weekly training and coaching to make sure that every child gets out of the reading gate as quickly as possible!
Impact
We are so proud of our outcomes in phonics and early reading. Not only do a very high percentage of our children reach the national expectation in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, they also develop their fluency at each stage of their journey which means that they are ready for the demands of the KS2 curriculum by the end of Year 2.
