At Ordsall Primary School, we believe in building strong foundations for our children within their learning in order to take advantage of opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in later life. It is particularly important, as part of our early reading offer, for our children to become confident, resilient readers and be able to decode and understand a wide range of different texts across the curriculum as they progress through school and out into the wider world of work.

We want children to love reading, and we recognise the wide-ranging neurological, educational, psychological, social and linguistic benefits that a firm foundation in reading rooted in a phonics approach provides.

At Ordsall Primary School, early reading is taught from Nursery through a structured phonics programme called Read, Write, Inc. From Reception, children work within ability groups which are reviewed regularly to ensure children are making rapid progress with their reading. These groups are usually smaller than a normal class size to enable tus to target and support children to achieve their best and learn to read as quickly as possible. All of our reading teachers undertake regular training and practice sessions to ensure the teaching of phonics at Ordsall Primary School is of the highest quality.

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. 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 these sounds together from left to right to make a word.

Children can then use this knowledge to decode new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read. Almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics will learn the skills they need to tackle new words and they can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment.

Children in Reception, Year 1, Year 2, and those still in need of phonics teaching in Year 3 and beyond, have a daily phonics session, and they are encouraged to use these strategies to read and write in other lessons.

Nursery

In Nursery, early phonics skills are taught through daily nursery rhymes, ring games and story sessions. The children play games that develop their early phonological awareness using skills in the areas outlined below:

• A1 – Environmental sounds
• A2 – Instrumental sounds
• A3 – Body Percussion
• A4 – Rhythm and rhyme
• A5 – Alliteration
• A6 – Voice sounds
• A7 – Oral blending and segmenting

Once these skills are embedded and secure, children are introduced to the Read, Write, Inc. programme and the picture frieze is used to teach the picture representation for each letter of the alphabet. By the summer term, daily sessions introduce sounds for the letters of the alphabet in RWI Set 1.

Reception

In Reception, children are introduced to the remaining Set 1 sounds. Along with those they already know, they learn to say and write these, and begin to blend them to read words. Each sound within Read, Write, Inc. is given a rhyme to help the children remember the sound that it makes and what it looks like. These are shown below, but can also be found within your child’s planner.

 

Towards the end of Reception, children learn the sounds contained within Set 2. These sounds are known as special friends as they contain two letters which make one sound when they are together within a word. By the end of Reception, the majority of children will have learnt all Set 1 and Set 2 sounds.

Year 1

Set 3 sounds are taught within Year 1.

By Easter in Year 1, the majority of children will have learnt all sets of sounds and be able to  blend these for reading in preparation for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.

Year 2 onwards

In Year 2, children continue to access daily phonics lessons through the Read, Write, Inc. programme. Most children will complete the programme by Easter in Year 2. Those who are secure in their phonic knowledge at this stage will begin the Read, Write, Inc. Comprehension programme.

We are determined to ensure all children learn to read as quickly as possible and provide additional Read, Write, Inc. and 1:1 tuition for any children who are working below the expected standard in Reception to Year 6.

Guided Reading

As part of the Read, Write, Inc. programme, links are made to both guided reading and individual reading in order for children to apply their learning and phonics skills. Books are closely matched to the phonics stage that the children are working at and daily guided reading and individual reading opportunities are timetabled.

Supporting your child in phonics

You can find out more about Read, Write, Inc. on the websites below, where there are videos to help parents/carers support children learning to read at home and explain how to pronounce the sounds the children are learning in their Read, Write, Inc. lessons.

Read, Write, Inc. Parents and Carers Page - advice for parents/carers to find out how to support their child's reading and writing at home.

Oxford Owl Free Read, Write, Inc. eBook Library - free eBooks that match the reading and phonics books your child will be looking at.

If you would like to access previous phonics screening checks to use with your child, these can be found here.