Phonics at Hoylake Holy Trinity
We use the Read, Write Inc programme to teach reading and phonics in our early years classes, Year 1 and some children in Year 2. All the children are regularly assessed and grouped according to their current level of phonic knowledge and skill. These groups are fluid and children will move groups throughout the year. Sessions take place daily and are taught by staff trained specifically in the programme.
Through our focus in developing phonics and early reading, children in F2, Year 1 and some children in Year 2, will bring home a Read, Write, Inc book bag book each week, which will be closely matched to their phonic knowledge and as such is fully decodable. This will be a book they are familiar with and have read throughout the week. This will help develop their fluency in reading.
Children will bring home an Oxford Reading Tree banded book, which may not be fully decodable, when they have completed set 1,2 and 3 of their sounds.
This means they may need support with reading some of the book.
These books will be supplemented with a reading for pleasure book from our library for children to share with an adult. For some children, this book will probably not be fully decodable for your child so the expectation is not for the child to read this book themselves. We strongly believe that children will develop a love of reading through experiencing success when reading at home and having quality story time with a wide range of books.
The best way to help your child achieve well in reading, and indeed across the curriculum, is to hear them read and share and discuss a variety of reading materials as often as you can. We urge you to, at least, strive for five times a week. We have a reading rainbow scheme, where children can earn special certificates as they move along the rainbow. This is to develop and embed those good reading habits that will help them to be successful in school and beyond. Throughout school, high quality books and other reading resources in the classrooms, along with special events such as author visits, help to inspire and motivate children to read.
Across school, we also operate a weekly discrete Reading lesson. All sessions will begin with a focus on vocabulary before moving on to speedy retrieval activities before being taught the skills linked to an explicit reading domain.
From F2 to Year 2, children are introduced to the reading domains through the use of our Reading dogs and in KS2 they have clear symbols that are used for the reading domains.
We recognise that parent partnership is a crucial tool in your child's progress. We encourage children to read their home/school reading book every evening. However, we would also like parents to take the time to read to their child so that you can share and discuss texts together. Please see our parent workshop about reading on the website.
All the staff at Hoylake Holy Trinity share their passion for reading and enjoy sharing different books with the children throughout the day.
Read.Write.Inc Phonics
What is Read Write Inc?
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy 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. RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
Reading
The children:
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 | Round the apple, down the leaf. |
s | Slide around the snake |
d | Round the dinosaur's back, up his 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 the net. |
p | Down the plait, up and over the pirates 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, tail and leg |
u | Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle |
b | Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel |
f | Down the stem and draw the leaves |
e | Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under 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 up and curl |
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 |
Please do not use letter names at this early stage.
Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
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 Teach these first | 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)
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.
RWI book:
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.
Within all the books children will have 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.
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.
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 | ||
Red Ditty 1-10 | ||
Green 1-10 | ||
Purple 1-10 | ||
Pink 1-10 | ||
Orange 1-12 | ||
Yellow 1-10 | ||
Blue 1-10 | ||
Grey 1-13 |
Phonics Screening Check Year One
What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?
The Year 1 phonics screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.
It will identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills. They will then be able to retake the check so that schools can track pupils until they are able to decode. We will hold a parent meeting in May to discuss this further with you.