Phonics & Reading

Phonics

Reading will give your child the tools to become an independent life-long learner.

We achieve this by:

• Teaching reading using Read Write Inc.
• Reading a range of storybooks daily to encourage a love of reading

At HPAM we teach Read Write Inc. (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their reading and writing.

What is RWI?

RWI is a literacy programme which teaches all children to learn to read fluently. At first, children learn to read ‘sounds’ and then learn how to blend those sounds together to read a word. Once they can read words, they read carefully matched Storybooks containing words they know. Their speed and fluency increases on subsequent reads of the book. All children are assessed half termly by our RWI leader so children are always learning to read at the right stage for them. Children are re-grouped each half term.

How can I help at home?

• Use pure sounds
• We use pure sounds (‘mmm’ not ’muh’,’sss’ not ‘suh’, etc.). This helps children to blend the sounds into words more easily.
• Please do not use letter names at this early stage.
• Sound out words using ‘Fred Talk’

We use a puppet called Fred who only talks in sounds. We call it ‘Fred Talk’.
E.g. m-o-p (mop), c-a-t (cat), m-a-n (man).

• Use Fred Talk throughout the day at home eg. ‘it’s time for l-u-n-ch… lunch!’
• ‘Fred Talk’ doc link
• Use the handwriting phrases

For each letter, there is a handwriting phrase. Use the handwriting phrase to support your child with their letter formation when writing.

Reading

Whole class reading is taught throughout the school. There are 4 reading lessons per week, each lasting for 50 minutes. Once a week, children read their own books for pleasure. During these sessions, children read to an adult, change their books and develop their own preferences re book choice. Each class book corner is stocked with high quality texts to engage the children. The other 4 lessons a week are taught as a whole class, all sharing one text. The text is carefully chosen to be pitched at a level above the reading level of the children in the class. These sessions are where the children get to be read to by an adult who can role model high quality reading skills. Each session will then focus on a reading skill allowing children to develop all the skills they need to be effective readers- vocabulary, inference, retrieval, summary, prediction and explanation.

Achievement will be measured through learning walks, pupil voice interviews and the outcomes of reading assessments.