READING

Early Years and Key Stage 1 Phonics

The Teaching of Phonics

At Grove Academy, we use a programme called Read Write Inc to teach phonics. This uses a structured process to ensure that all children are taught to read.

Step 1: Children are assessed and grouped according to their phonics knowledge.

Assessment is done half termly.

Groups are flexible; children often move around depending on what they need at that time.

Step 2: The sounds are taught systematically to the children

The sounds are taught in sets.

Set 1 sounds

Your child will learn these sounds first. They will also learn how to blend them together (e.g. c-a-t > cat).

m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, u, b, f, e, l, h, r, j, v, y, w, th, z, x, sh, ch, qu, ng, nk

Set 2 sounds

These are the long vowel sounds. These are often made up of 2 or more letters (called special friends) e.g. ay as in play, ee as in tree. To help learn these sounds, your child will learn rhymes containing these letters.

ay: may I play?	ee: what can you see?	igh: fly high
ow: blow the snow	oo: poo at the zoo	oo: look at a book
ar: start the car	or: shut the door	air: that’s not fair
ir: whirl and twirl	ou: shout it out	oy: toy for a boy

 

Set 3 sounds

Your children will learn these sounds once they have learnt all the set 1 and set 2 sounds. Please be guided by the school when to start these. The set 3 sounds are different ways that the long vowels are written e.g. ea as in tea and ee as in tree. Like in set 2, these are made up of 2 or more letters.

ea: cup of tea	oi: spoil the boy	a-e: make a cake
i-e: nice smile	o-e: phone home	u-e: huge brute
aw: yawn at dawn	are: share and care	ur: purse for a nurse
er: a better letter	ow: brown cow	ai: snail in the rain
oa: goat in a boat	ew: chew the stew	ire: fire fire!
ear: hear with your ear	ure: sure it’s pure?	tion: celebration
tious/cious: scrumptious/ delicious	e: he, me, we, she, be

It is important that these sounds are practised in order. These tables show you the order of the sounds.

Word time is the first part of learning to read. We teach the children the sounds in a specific order (please see above). When they know the first 5 sounds, we start teaching them how to blend these into simple words (e.g., mat, mad, dad). To do this, we use magnetic letters and show them how letters combine into words.

All letters have a picture to go with them, to help the children remember the sound and to help with letter formation.

Step 3: Children read and spell out decodable words

Children learn to read ‘green words’ – these use the sounds they have been learning.

We sound out each sound and then blend. This is called ‘Fred talk’.

Alongside reading words, we practise spelling the same words. Teaching the skills concurrently allows the children to understand how words are made up and enhances their understanding. We encourage the children to pinch the sounds using “Fred Fingers”.

Step 4: Children use ‘ditties’ to practice early reading and writing. They continue learning letter sound correspondences.

The children are now reading simple stories! Each day they will read a different story. These will contain green words and introduce the children to red words. Red words cannot be decoded.

They will continue to learn set 1 sounds, with particular focus on sh, th, ch, ng and nk.

Each day they will perform different writing tasks, aimed at building up their confidence at writing simple sentences.

Step 5: Children read levelled, decodable texts and do integrated writing activities. They continue learning letter sound correspondences.

Children move onto the other books when they begin to read words without sounding them out first. This ensures fluency when reading.

Children begin to learn the set 2 and set 3 sounds. They will revisit these sounds until they are secure in their understanding, reading these in single syllable and multisyllabic words.

Children will come across new green and red words, begin to learn more about punctuation, and read with expression and understanding.

Throughout this time, we support the children in building their fluency by practising reading these books and short extracts at speed.

What can you do at home?

Read stories to them and with them!

It is vital that the children are exposed to as much language as possible. We understand that you are incredibly busy, but it really does make a difference.

Read the ‘bookbag’ books that the school send home with the children. These match the phonics the children are learning in school each week. They may contain words your child will find difficult, but they should be at an appropriate level for them.

Sometimes your child might bring home a book that they can read easily. Please do not say “This is too easy” but instead encourage them to change their voice as they read, adding expression. You can also ask them questions about things that happen, or what they think about parts of the story.

Within the reading books, there are a variety of activities. These can be used as your reading activity for the day. For example:

5. Day 1 – practise reading the sounds speedily
5. Day 2 - practise the story words and red words - these are found near the front
5. Day 3 – read the story. Your child should be able to read this independently, but you can take it turns to read pages.
5. Day 4 – practise reading the speedy words at the back. Set a timer and see how many they can read in a minute.
6. Day 5 – read the book bag book that is an engaging story that links to the book that they have read in school. Alternatively, use the “questions to talk about” at the back of the book to support comprehension.

Encourage them to read anything and everything. Get books from your local library, use comic books, encourage them to read the instructions to games you play and things when you are out and about. We also highly recommend https://storylineonline.net/ or CBeebies Bedtime Stories.

When helping your child with writing, encourage the correct letter formation, but do not rub out their work. Model how letters should be formed and allow your child to copy these.

Have a look on RUTH MISKIN TRAINING website for more information and helpful videos for parents.  It is vital that your child is pronouncing the sounds in a ‘pure’ way and not adding an –uh sound to the end (e.g., muh, cuh) as this will not help them with blending.

Each week, we send home virtual classroom videos to children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Please do take the time to watch these; they are an invaluable resource.

Go over the high frequency words with your child. These words appear repeatedly throughout the English language, and unfortunately these are words they cannot sound out and just need to know!

High frequency words for Year 1:

a	the	to	i	no	go	of	is
his	has	he	she	we	mw	be	was
my	you	they	are	said	so	some	come
were	there	where	one	do	today	house	by
your	ask	put	full	pull	push	here	love
once	our	says	school	friend

 

High frequency words for Year 2:

door	gold	plant	clothes	floor	hold	path	busy
told	poor	bath	people	because	every	hour	water
find	great	move	again	kind	break	prove	half
mind	steak	improve	money	behind	pretty	sure	Mr
Mrs	child	beautiful	sugar	children	after	eye	parents
wild	fast	could	Christmas	climb	last	should	everybody
most	past	would	even	only	father	who	both
class	whole	old	grass	any	cold	pass	many

 

Phonics Screening Check

At the end of Year 1, all children are required to take the phonics screening check. It is a statutory Government assessment to analyse children’s individual phonetic knowledge. This will help the school assess whether your child has learnt phonetic decoding to an appropriate standard and will help identify sounds your child may need further consolidation on in Year 2.

What does it involve?

Children will be asked to read 40 words. 20 of these will be real words, 20 will be pseudo words (alien words e.g. blum).

How is it administered?

Children complete the check individually in a quiet place with a member of the Year 1 team or the reading lead. There is no time limit, but the average time taken is less than 10 minutes.

How will we prepare your child for the phonics screening check?

• We expose your child to all the sounds that may come up in the test, using games that include real and alien words.
• We will send home real and alien words for your child to read as part of our homework.
• We assess your children every half term using real and pseudo words, so we are confident that the screening check won’t cause any distress.
• We will send home some sample materials to enable you to practice with your child.

Things to consider:

• Your child’s score will be included in their end of year report.
• If they do not pass the phonics screening check, they will be re-tested at the end of Year 2 to check their progress.
• In previous years, the pass rate was 32/40. This is subject to change.
• The test is administered in June.

Year 2 through to Year 6

Students who find learning to read difficult and need further help to keep up receive targeted support to improve their reading, fluency and vocabulary. They will work in small groups or one-to-one with a reading teacher using a rigorous phonics tutoring programme that shares the same principles as Read Write Inc.

Students in Year 2 through to Year 6 who have graduated Read Write Inc. have a dedicated half an hour of Reading skills during each day. The books studied have been chosen to complement the topics students are studying within foundation subjects and may also link to the genre students are learning about in English lessons.

To further develop a love of reading; teachers read to their classes most days for ten minutes, each class has an engaging and interactive reading area, students have regular timetabled slots to enjoy reading together; and a weekly visit to the school library.