Reading

Reading is led by Miss Witham who is supported by Mrs Forrester.

Our reading curriculum aims to inspire a love of books and reading equipping children with lifelong learning skills enabling them to flourish.

Phonics

At Brereton CE Primary School, we follow the Read Write Inc (RWI) phonics and reading scheme. Read, Write Inc is a highly successful phonics programme for children who are learning to read and write. It teaches children how to both decode and understand written language to become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. This is achieved by a dynamic approach to teaching phonics that is consistent across the school using the Read, Write Inc phonics resources and fully decodable reading books.

What is phonics?

Phonics is the method of teaching reading through the identification of sounds. All words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes). These sounds are blended together to form words. e.g. in 'mat' we have the sounds 'm', 'a', 't', ship – 'sh', 'i', 'p'. A grapheme is another name for the letters we use to write the sound. It’s spelling of a sound on the page.

We use 44 sounds to make all the words in the English language. This means we've got a problem. We've got 44 sounds and only 26 letters. The 26 letters work singly, in pairs and sometimes in threes to represent one sound. We have to group letters together to write some sounds e.g. 'igh', 'ay. In English we have more than 150 ways (graphemes) to represent 44 sounds, using the 26 letters in the alphabet. This makes our language one of the most complex in the world! Using RWI, we make learning to read easy for children because we start by teaching them just one way of reading and writing every sound. Children need to know sounds – not letter names – to read words.

Using phonics, children learn to read by saying each sound and blending them to read a word. Children learn to spell by segmenting a word into sounds and writing the matching graphemes. The National Curriculum ensures that all children are taught Phonics systematically. This gives children the tools to read any word, for example demonstrate, containing, roamed, trivial, injured, whimper.

Who is Read Write Inc. for?

Phonics is for children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 who are learning to read. Phonics is also for children in Key Stage 2 who haven't met the Key Stage 1 reading expectations. Children are grouped based on their stage of reading. This means that teaching is matched to their level and pitched at the appropriate challenge point, according to children’s phonic and reading knowledge and confidence. If children are not where we would expect them to be at certain points in the year, they will have daily extra phonics practise with their Reading Tutor, to secure progress. Every child learns to read and becomes a reader!

Children who join the school throughout the year are quickly assessed in phonics and grouped according to their ability.

How does Read Write Inc. work?

Phonics begins straight away in Reception. Children learn how to read sounds (phonemes) and how these sounds can be written down (graphemes). This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters using a linked image and phrase. Once the children have learnt to blend accurately, they start to read with fluency. This is achieved through speedy reading of individual words and repeated reads of their shared reading books. Words that contain ‘tricky letters’ or patterns that don't match their sounds (e.g. 'ai' in 'said' making an 'e' sound) are taught explicitly as part of the reading session; these are known as ‘red words’.

Each phonics session consists of a Speed Sounds lesson and a Storybook lesson taught in small groups.

During the Speed Sounds lesson, children learn to: read and write a sound; review previously taught sounds; read words containing the sound as well as reading review words containing previously taught sounds; spell words containing the sound as well as spelling review words containing previously taught sounds.

The Storybook lesson ensures that each child reads during every phonics lesson within the small group with their reading teacher. During this lesson, children learn to decode, build accuracy and fluency and develop their comprehension skills. All texts are linked to the child's phonic ability and are decodable. Children enjoy one focus text per week and learning activities support accurate and fluent reading to facilitate comprehension.

In addition, children take fully decodable reading books home to further practice skills learnt at school. These books are matched to each child's phonics ability and are closely monitored by the reading teachers to ensure that children are reading books of an appropriate level.

Our aim is for children to finish the RWI Phonics programme (after grey books) by the end of Spring 1 in Year 2.

The Five Principles

Read, Write Inc. has five core principles to teaching and learning – the five Ps.

PURPOSE – each activity has a very clear purpose. The teacher will share this purpose so that the children know exactly what they will be learning.
PASSION – as a staff we are passionate about our teaching and the benefits of the Read, Write Inc. programme! We love teaching the sessions and want to share this enthusiasm for reading with the children.
PACE – every moment is devoted to teaching and learning and no time is wasted during phonics lessons. Children are active, involved and motivated.
PARTICIPATION – every child takes part in every aspect of the lesson. Full participation also involves partner work and choral response.
PRAISE – teachers praise the children constantly throughout the teaching sessions. We praise effort and progress.

What do children take home to read?

At the end of each week, children bring home 3 books:

The guided reading book that they have read in school that week. They should feel very confident with this book as they have read it 4 times in school – rereading at home with their grown-ups will help them to build fluency, speed, comprehension and confidence.
A book bag book. Book bag books link to the stories that we have read in guided reading time. They provide practice of the same sounds. Each child will not have read this book before, but they know all the sounds and will be able to work out any new words.
A reading for pleasure book. These are chosen by the children from our reading for pleasure library, to provide opportunity to listen to a lovely story to develop vocabulary, comprehension and a love of books.

We collect reading books and reading diaries in on a Thursday. We keep these overnight so that they can be changed after school. On a Friday, each child will bring home their reading diary and their new reading books for the week.

How can parents and carers support at home?

Listen to your child read every day
Read stories to your child every day
Watch the virtual classroom videos that class teachers send home each week
Use pure sounds, not letter names
Use Fred Talk to read and spell words
Watch video tutorials on the Ruth Miskin website to help you to understand more about phonics, Read Write Inc. and how to practice reading and writing with your child at home.

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/

Below are some files which will provide more information and support