PHONICS AND EARLY READING

Expectations of Progress

At its heart, phonics is about giving every child the tools, confidence and independence to unlock the joy of reading.

At Beech Grove, we believe that learning to read is one of the most important foundations we can give every child. Reading opens the door to learning across the curriculum, develops children's understanding of the world and gives them access to the imagination, knowledge and enjoyment found within books. Through our rigorous and systematic Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, children learn the sounds of the English language and how to blend these sounds to read words accurately. From the beginning of Reception, children build their phonic knowledge progressively, applying what they know to carefully matched books so that they experience success, develop confidence and increasingly see themselves as readers.

Through lively, carefully structured daily teaching, we help children develop accuracy, fluency, comprehension and a love of reading. Children learn to recognise sounds quickly, blend them to read unfamiliar words and use their growing phonic knowledge to support spelling and writing. Books are closely matched to the sounds children know, enabling them to practise decoding successfully before developing greater fluency, expression and understanding. Children regularly talk and work with a partner, ensuring that everyone is actively participating, thinking and practising throughout each lesson. As their knowledge becomes increasingly secure, children move from sounding out words towards reading them automatically and with a storyteller's voice, freeing their attention to focus increasingly on meaning and enjoyment.

We are committed to ensuring that every child receives the teaching and support they need to become a successful reader. Children are regularly assessed so that teaching is closely matched to their stage of learning, with groups adjusted as they progress and additional one-to-one practice provided for children who need extra support. Reading continues beyond the phonics lesson through carefully matched books at home, daily opportunities to enjoy stories and a wider culture in which books and reading are valued and celebrated.

We work in partnership with families so that children can practise familiar sounds and books at home while also experiencing the pleasure of sharing stories together. Our aim is not simply for children to complete a phonics programme, but for every child to leave early reading with the fluency, confidence and enthusiasm that enables them to access the wider curriculum and continue their journey as a lifelong reader. This builds directly upon Beech Grove's existing commitment that reading is a top priority and that no child should be allowed to fall behind.

Through engaging and carefully sequenced opportunities to read, practise and succeed, pupils are enriched by stories and language that build confidence, fluency and a love of books, gaining the skills and independence to excel as enthusiastic and successful readers.

Our aims are to teach children to:

apply the skill of blending phonemes in order to read words.
segment words into their constituent phonemes in order to spell words.
learn that blending and segmenting words are reversible processes.
read high frequency words that do not conform to regular phonic patterns.
read texts and words that are within their phonic capabilities as early as possible.
decode texts effortlessly so all their resources can be used to comprehend what they read.

The 5 principles below underpin our teaching:

Praise – Children learn quickly in a positive climate.

Pace – Good pace is essential to the lesson.

Purpose – Every part of the lesson has a specific purpose.

Passion – This is a very prescriptive programme. It is the energy, enthusiasm and passion that teachers put into the lesson that bring the teaching and learning to life!

Participation – A feature of RWI lessons is partner work and the partners ‘teaching’ each other (based on research which states that we learn 70% of what we talk about with our partner and 90% of what we teach).

For those children needing frequent repetition, 'pinny time' is carried out in EYFS classes. For those children at risk of falling behind, formal 1:1 tutoring sessions are implemented by the support staff working across year groups to address the gaps.

Further information for parents

Reading opens the curriculum. At Beech Grove we support the children to become fluent readers. Our expectation is that children read 60-70 words per minute at the blue level and up to 90 words per minute when they progress to grey books. Please watch this example clip of a child in Year 2 reading; we make sure the children at Beech Grove can read with similar fluency and speed.

At home, you can do several things to help your child increase their fluency:

re-read each sentence after the children first de-code it, increasing the smoothness and using a 'storytelling voice' - no 'r-o-b-o-t reading', please!
use the easier books you are being sent to time how long it takes to read a page/the book. Record the score and try to beat the PB (personal best) next time. The 'easier book' would be the book your child has already read, for the blue group those would be the yellow books we send home weekly
model reading a sentence fluently, and ask your child to 'echo read', copying your intonation
praise the effort and hard work
give specific feedback e.g. it is a long word to read in one go; let's chunk it e.g. play-ground

Further guidance for parents and carers to help you support your child at home:

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

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"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents"

Emily Buchwald

What is phonics and why do we teach it?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read skillfully.

They are taught how to:

recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes;
identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’; and
blend those sounds together from left to right to make a word.

Children can then use this knowledge to ‘decode’ new words that they see or hear. This is the first important step to learning to read.

Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way – starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the most complex – it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It is particularly helpful for children aged 5 to 7.

Almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics will learn the skills they need to tackle new words. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and read for enjoyment.

Children who have been taught phonics also tend to read more accurately than those taught using other methods, such as ‘look and say’. This includes children who find learning difficult to read, for example those who have dyslexia. At Beech Grove we use the RWI scheme for teaching phonics.

Please see www.gov.uk/government/collections/phonics for more information.

What is meant by Set 1, Set 2 and Set 3?

Set 1 sounds

Children learn their sounds in groups, building to using these groups of sounds to read and spell words in Word Time sessions. To begin with there are 6 groups in set 1.

Set 2 sounds

As children progress into learning set 2 sounds they will move from ditty books onto books with one, longer story. RWI lessons will contain time to learn new sounds, existing sound practice, time for reading and also writing.

Set 3 sounds

Children begin to learn that there are multiple ways to read and spell some sounds. They are reminded of one way and learn another, new way.

Please click here to see the Sounds for Sets 1, 2 and 3

What is meant by 'green' words?

'Green' words are phonetically decodable words that the children learn to read. They allow children to become fluent readers because regular reading of these words mean that they become familiar and are able to recognise/read them on sight. They can then use their knowledge of these words to read similar words more quickly. The following are not an exhaustive list of the only words that children will read but instead are an indication of the types of words that will be read at each stage. Children are not tested on these as reading or spelling tests but their ability to read them may be used to inform us of their progress.

The Green words build in stages, called 'Word Time' lessons and during these sessions the children use their recently learnt sounds to segment and blend words.

What is meant by 'red' words?

These are words that children will need to learn on sight because they contain parts that are not decodable. They are arranged into groups according to the colour of the books that they appear in. They might only be red words until a specific sound is learnt or because people pronounce them differently in different parts of the country.

Who is Fred?

Fred is our RWI mascot/friend. He can only speak in sounds though, so we have to help him learn to say words, instead of sounds. For example Fred says 'c-a-t' instead of cat. We also teach him not to add 'uh' to our sounds in order to keep them pure. For example we say 'c' and not 'cuh'.

What is meant by 'Fred Fingers'?

Fred Fingers

We use 'Fred Fingers' to help make the transition between oral sounding out and spelling with magnetic letters or on paper.

Firstly we count how many sounds we can hear:

"cat, c-a-t, 3 sounds".

Then we hold up that many fingers.

For each sound we use our other hand to squeeze a Fred Finger and say the sound

"c-a-t".

Then we use our free hand to 'sweep' over our Fred Fingers and to blend the sounds into a word

"cat"

Watch out - words such as fish needs 3 Fred Fingers - "f-i-sh". Words such as flight need 4 Fred Fingers - "f-l-igh-t".

As children become more confident with their sounds and spelling words they will move away from using their Fred Fingers and instead rely on sounding out in their head.

What books will my child read in their RWI lessons?

After children have learned enough sounds they will begin to read 'Ditty' books in their RWI lessons, as well as continuing Speedy Sounds and Word Time sessions. Ditty books contain 3 short stories that the children read and these stories are made up from green and red words.

Following Ditty books children continue to read groups of books that have been specially written to support progress through the scheme.

Each colour band contains 10 main books, with extra books to support non-fiction reading as well. Children are taught to read the 'green' and 'red' words at the beginning of each book, before checking understanding using the 'vocab check' page. The children also talk about the upcoming story to make links to their own experiences before reading the book, usually 3 times. The first time is to practise decoding the words, the second time is to practise expression and the third time is to read for comprehension. Each book focuses on a particular sound or set of sounds, allowing the children to practise the sounds that they have been learning most recently. Adults will move their group through the books, picking and choosing books that they feel will best support the learning of their group.

Why do children practise reading 'nonsense' words?

Research has shown that incorporating nonsense words into teaching reading can be an effective way to establish blending and segmenting skills. However it is important to ensure that children understand that they are reading nonsense words (and why) so that they are not confused by trying to read the words for meaning. By reading nonsense words children develop their ability to decode individual sounds and then blend them together to read. They are an indicator of early reading skills and work as a quick, reliable and valid way of assessing children.

Below you can find some examples of nonsense words for each stage of RWI Of course, any number of nonsense words exist and the following lists are only to give an idea of the kinds of words that might be used.