Our fundamental aim is to teach every child to read as quickly as possible, and be enthused about reading. We strive to teach children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension, as well as develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. These essential skills not only unlock doors to the rest of the curriculum, but also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life experiences.
Here, at Rumboldswhyke Church of England Primary School, we are dedicated to enabling our children to become enthused, engaged and successful lifelong readers. To achieve this, we implement structured daily phonic lessons where phonics is taught as a way of decoding written letters and spoken sounds in the early stages of learning to read. Learning to read is like cracking a code so, by teaching phonics, we teach children to crack the code. We follow the ‘Read Write Inc’ programme which provides a structured and systematic approach to the teaching of phonics. It aims for children to develop fluent word reading skills and have good foundations in spelling by the end of Key Stage One. Children progress through 3 sets of sounds, allowing them to learn the essential ‘building blocks’ of words to help them read and spell with greater fluency.
The teaching of phonics begins in Reception, using Read Write Inc to introduce sounds to the children. Children will then learn further sounds in line with Read Write Inc progression. Phonics sessions take place every day. Children are grouped according to attainment to make sure teaching and learning is at the correct level for their current achievement. Groups may contain a mixture of EYFS, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 children. As soon as children have a thorough understanding of decoding words these children will then access the Inference approach to reading.
Key Stage 2 Children identified as being below the expected level of attainment for phonics and reading will receive additional support through Read Write Inc intervention sessions.
Reading books to take home
When first starting to read, our children take home ‘Exploring Sounds’ books and then Red ditty Read Write Inc books. These are phonetically decodable and progressively challenge the children to decode words they have learnt in class. Once the children have read the red, green and purple Read Write Inc books, their learning pathway is personalized to their needs.
The children begin to take home a range of different schemed books which include the trigraphs, digraphs they have been taught within their Read Write Inc sessions. We want to ignite a love of reading in our children and believe that children need to have the opportunity to apply their early reading skills taught by using a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. This is sometimes from different decodable schemes e.g. Big Cat phonics, Bug club books and Oxford Reading Tree. Staff use the Read Write Inc groupings/assessments to ensure the books the children take home match their phonics phase so children can decode these books easily. Children also take home a library book to enjoy reading together with their parents/carers
Our consistent approach to the teaching of our systematic phonics curriculum enables children to become confident, fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers, which in turn, unlocks doors to the rest of the curriculum allowing children to flourish in all areas.
The Read Write Inc. scheme was written by Ruth Miskin . Ruth’s website provides various videos about helping your child. Please click on the link below to find out more. http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/