Reading & Phonics
"Reading is important because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything." Tomie dePaola
Here are some top tips for supporting your child with their reading...
- Read to your child and always discuss the story you are reading to try to build your child’s comprehension skills, inference and understanding.
- Practice the sounds they know at home. These are the sounds in the Speed Sound Chart at the start of the storybooks.
- Listen to your child read, both their RWI storybook and other storybooks, every day. Make sure that your child brings their RWI Storybook into school every day!
- Talk to them! The most important thing you can do is to talk to your child and listen to them when they are talking to you. Try to extend their vocabulary range and their skill at talking in increasingly more complex sentences. For example, try to teach them alternative words for ideas, or nouns they already know.
- Make sure that they attend school every day, and that they are on time, as this will help your child to make the most progress.
- Visit the Parents section of the RWI website: RWI – Parents’ Portal for more tips, techniques and helpful hints
- Visit the Oxford Owl Reading at home pages: Oxford Owl Reading at home for super additional information.
If you need further advice or help with how best to help, please contact the class teacher who will be happy to meet with you.
Extra Details about RWI
You might hear your child using key phrases while they are on their journey and we have tried to explain these below.
Fred Talk
We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.
At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.
The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q
The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.
Step 1:
Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
|
Set 1 |
|
|
Sound |
Rhyme |
|
m |
Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain. |
|
a |
Round the apple, down the leaf. |
|
s |
Slide around the snake |
|
d |
Round the dinosaur's back, up his neck and down to his feet. |
|
t |
Down the tower, across the tower, |
|
i |
Down the insects body, dot for the head. |
|
n |
Down Nobby and over the net. |
|
p |
Down the plait, up and over the pirates face. |
|
g |
Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl |
|
o |
All around the orange |
|
c |
Curl around the caterpillar |
|
k |
Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg |
|
u |
Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle |
|
b |
Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel |
|
f |
Down the stem and draw the leaves |
|
e |
Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg |
|
l |
Down the long leg |
|
h |
Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
|
sh |
Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
|
r |
Down the robot's back, then up and curl |
|
j |
Down his body, curl and dot |
|
v |
Down a wing, up a wing |
|
y |
Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head. |
|
w |
Down, up, down, up the worm. |
|
th |
Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back |
|
z |
Zig-zag-zig, down the zip. |
|
ch |
Curl around the caterpillar, , then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
|
qu |
Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl |
|
x |
Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way |
|
ng |
A thing on a string |
|
nk |
I think I stink |
Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
Step 2:
The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds (the same sounds made with different letters).
|
Long vowel sound |
Set 2 Speed Sound cards Teach these first |
Set 3 Speed Sound cards |
|
|
ay |
ay: may I play |
a-e: make a cake |
ai: snail in the rain |
|
ee |
ee: what can you see |
ea: cup of tea |
e: he me we she be |
|
igh |
igh: fly high |
i-e: nice smile |
|
|
ow |
ow: blow the snow |
o-e: phone home |
ao: goat in a boat |
|
oo |
oo: poo at the zoo |
u-e: huge brute |
ew: chew the stew |
|
oo |
oo: look at a book |
|
|
|
ar |
ar: start the car |
|
|
|
or |
or: shut the door |
aw: yawn at dawn |
|
|
air |
air: that’s not fair |
are: share and care |
|
|
ir |
ir: whirl and twirl |
ur: nurse for a purse |
er: a better letter |
|
ou |
ou: shout it out |
ow: brown cow |
|
|
oy |
oy: toy for a boy |
oi: spoil the boy |
|
|
ire |
|
ire: fire fire! |
|
|
ear |
|
ear: hear with your ear |
|
|
ure |
|
ure: sure it’s pure? |
|
Nonsense words (Alien words)
As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term.
Order of Story books: Children will follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One as confident speedy readers, ready to take on the challenges of Year Two. However, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this.
|
Books |
Year Group Expectations |
Green Words in Books |
|
Red Ditty 1-10 |
Reception |
|
|
Green 1-10 |
Reception |
|
|
Purple 1-10 |
Reception |
|
|
Pink 1-10 |
Reception/Year One |
|
|
Orange 1-12 |
Year One |
|
|
Yellow 1-10 |
Year One |
|
|
Blue 1-10 |
Year One |
|
|
Grey 1-13 |
Year One |
Ditty Books:
Children will be introduced to ‘Ditty books’ when they successfully begin to read single words. The short vowels should be kept short and sharp:
Children use sound-blending (Fred Talk) to read short ditties. They will bring these home once they have read and discussed the book in class.
Red and Green Words
Within all the books children will have red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.
Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.
Taking Books Home
Across the daily RWI sessions, children will read the book three times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. They will be then sent home with a book they feel confident reading to help them develop their fluency and speed of reading. In addition to this they will also take home a ‘Book Bag Book’, which will match the new sounds learnt but they will not have read this in as much detail allowing them to practise their new sounds and words within a new reading book.
