Phonics – Read, Write, Inc.

How we teach phonics
We teach phonics using the Read Write Inc programme, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. Our staff are trained on the programme, which ensures good subject knowledge and a consistent approach across the school.

We start teaching the Read Write Inc programme from Reception and continue until the autumn term in Year 2. Where needed, children can continue learning phonics beyond year 2, to ensure all children leave Watling Park as fluent readers.

Visit the Read, Write, Inc parents information page which includes a series of information and tutorial videos explaining the basis of the Read, Write, Inc. method, including how to say the sounds and the phonics screening check.

Why read with your child?

In Reception and Year 1, children use phonics to learn and decode sounds in order to develop their reading skills. To assist with learning at home, the Reception team have put together a range of videos and activities exploring our Set 2 sounds.

Please click on the links below for each sound:

Other Resources:

There are many great websites and apps to help support phonics learning at home. Here are some of our favourites:

Learning to Blend with Fred: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3

www.phonicsplay.co.uk – Buried Treasure, Dragons Den, Obb and Bob

www.ictgames.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J2Ddf_0Om8 – help with pronunciation

http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html

 

Guidance notes and resources to support your child with Phonics and the Phonics Screening Check

Phonics Home Learning Sheet

PowerPoint for Parents

PowerPoint for Children

Alien words

Alien sorting cards

Real words

Phonics sets 1,2 and 3

Large sets 1,2 and 3

Phonics Vocabulary

Phoneme – The smallest unit of sound. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English (it depends on different accents). Phonemes can be put together to make words.

Grapheme – A way of writing down a phoneme. Graphemes can be made up from 1 letter e.g. p, 2 letters e.g. sh, 3 letters e.g. tch or 4 letters e.g ough.

GPC – This is short for Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence – it is the letters that write a sound.

Digraph – A grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme), e.g. sh, ee, oo, th.

Trigraph – A grapheme containing three letters that makes just one sound (phoneme) e.g. igh, ear, ore.

Blending – This involves looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of GPCs to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word.

Segmenting – This involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes (sound talk/sounding out) that make it, using knowledge of GPCs to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order.

Alien words – These are ‘made up’ words which test children’s knowledge of known phonemes.