Early Reading & RWI Phonics

Early Reading Curriculum Intent Statement

At Linacre Primary School we consider ourselves a 'Reading' school and class reading as a key priority. We aim to provide high quality teaching and learning experiences which result in children becoming confident, skilled and fluent readers, whilst at the same time fostering a love of books, so that all children are able to become life-long readers. Reading skills are taught during daily English lessons as well as in additional Phonics sessions.

We work closely with Parents/Carers to teach reading and phonics. The partnership involves:

• Meetings/workshops to explain and showcase the teaching of reading/phonics in school and to model ways in which children can be supported at home
• Weekly 'Reading Mornings' where Parents/Carers are invited into school to share books with their children
• Reading to children daily
• Weekly R 'n' R (Read and Relax.) All staff and pupils read and enjoy their own texts at a set time
• Celebrating successes and achievements in Phonics and Reading
• Reporting progress in reading/phonics during Parent Consultations
• End of year reports

Here at Linacre we follow the Read, Write, Inc (RWI) phonics scheme of work in order to teach our children to read. We use the same scheme consistently from Nursery through to Year 2 and sometimes beyond. If children continue to access RWI when they are in KS2 we also offer additional support and intervention to help them close the gap. RWI supports the children with their reading, spelling and grammar. This scheme is now becoming embedded at Linacre and we are seeing lots of positive results, from using this approach. 

 

The five main principles underpinned by RWI are as follows:

• Purpose - know the purpose of every activity and share it with the children, so they know and understand the one thing they should be concentrating on at that moment.
• Participation - ensure that every child is involved throughout the lesson. Working in partnership is a fundamental part of this scheme.
• Praise - ensure that children are praised for effort and participation, not necessarily ability.
• Pace - teach with speed and rigour and ensure that every minute is dedicated to high quality teaching and learning
• Passion - be passionate about teaching phonics so that the children are engaged, motivated and enthusiastic about learning.

 

There are many ways you can support your child with reading. You can always chat to the teachers and ask for advice, we will run workshops at regular intervals throughout the school year and further information about the scheme, including parent support videos and training are also available on the following Ruth Miskin website

 

http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/

 

This site is invaluable in offering support for all of our families to ensure that your child leaves KS1 as a fluent and confident reader. We will also update this page regularly with specific videos that we recommend you watch.

 

Any questions please do contact your child's class teacher or Mrs Martin, who will be more than happy to help.

 

Please familiarise yourselves with our Early Reading policy, at the top of this page, which should help to answer any questions that you may have. 

Please see below for a list of our RWI stages and corresponding staged colour bands. This sheet also gives you information about the types of activities you can complete with your children in order to help them move from one stage to the next. When learning to read your child will always bring a 'phonetically decodable' book home with the. This means that the book is matched to their phonic stage and ability, so they should always be able to attempt the sounds and words with some degree of accuracy and success. It is important to build the pupil's confidence and adopt a love of reading from the very start of the their reading journey.

When children learn to read and begin to recognise letters and sounds they will also begin to write and form these letters. RWI teaches the children rhymes known as mnemonics to help them rapidly recall letter formation. Below is a list of the mnemonics we use at school. It would be extremely helpful if you could reinforce these at home when supporting your child. 

Below is a list of useful websites which will help your child learn all about phonics:

 

http://www.jollylearning.co.uk/ - games and information for parents

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ - lots of games for children to play

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

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

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