Reading

Teaching Children to Read Using Read Write Inc Phonics

At Thelwall Infant School and Nursery we use 'Read Write Inc' to teach phonics and early reading. Below you will see two presentations, one for reception parents and one for KS1 parents that gives an overview of the scheme and how it is used to teach early reading in school. Children who attend our nursery begin the scheme in the summer term before they move into Reception.

Correct Pronunciation of Letter Sounds

It is vital that children learn to pronounce the sounds that they learn correctly. Please watch the video to see how each sound is pronounced correctly.

Parent presentations

Each Autumn term we host reading meetings for parents to explain how reading is taught. Below you can view the presentations that we use.

Year 1 Phonic Screening Check

In June Year 1 children complete a phonic screening check. This is a Department for Education statutory check of each child’s phonic knowledge, the results of which are reported to both them and you.

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skillfully. In school children are taught to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes; (as well as the names of the letters)

• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’, and

• blend these sounds together from left to right to read a word.

Children can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words that they see or hear. This is an important step in learning to read.

In school, phonics is taught in a systematic and structured way using the 'Read write inc' scheme.

During the phonics screening check your child will sit with their teacher and will be asked to read 40 words aloud. (See below to view previous screening check materials). Children are required to get 32 out of 40 in order to meet the expected standard. The check is a mix of real words and ‘non – words’ or 'alien words' (nonsense words). Your child will be told before the check that there will be non-words that he or she will not have seen before. Your child will be familiar with ‘non-words’ as we play games in school that use ‘non-words’ as part of our phonics teaching and learning. Non-words are included in the check because words such as ’jorb’ ‘bluns’ or ‘quigh’ are new to all children and so these words assess their ability in phonics / to de-code.

Often when reading 'alien' words children will try to make them into real words rather than looking carefully at the sounds within them. Lots of practise at reading alien words is really helpful.

Resources to help support your child at home

There are lots of interactive resources out there and below we have detailed a website that has some simple and fun games for both real and ‘alien worda’. One that we would recommend is Phonics Play. You will need to login to access the games.

User name - thelwallinfants Password – Thelwall01

Go into the resources section. Choose the games below and practise Phase 3, 4 and 5. You can select which graphemes to practise if you know your child struggles to recognise certain ones.

Year 1 Phonic Screening Check Past Papers

Reading comprehension

Once the children have developed a good level of fluency in reading and are secure in the phonics taught, the focus moves onto the comprehension of what they are reading. Below are two documents to help you ask the right questions when your child is reading.