Phonics

Learning to read is one of the most important things your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we use Read Write Inc as our phonics scheme.

How will my child be taught to read?

We start by teaching phonics. This means that the children learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are.

The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.

The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.

How will I know how well my child is doing?

We will always let you know how well your child is doing.

We use various ways to find out how the children are getting on in reading. We use the information to decide what reading group they should be in. Your child will work with children who are at the same reading level as them. Children will move to a different group if they are making faster progress than the others. Your child will have one-to-one support if we think he or she needs some extra help to keep up.

What can I do to help at home?

Once your child can confidently recognise sounds and can successfully blend them together to make words, they will bring home a RWInc book bag book matched to the book they are learning in school. These books also contain guidance for reading at home. The children will read the same book at least 3 times to ensure successful blending of sounds, recognition of red words, understanding and finally, fluency and expression.

We also have a subscription to the RWInc Ebook library, which you can find at www.oxfordowl.co.uk. Your child will be given a password to access the book they have been allocated to read that week.

Where can I find more information?

As we are currently unable to hold parent meetings in school, we will be adding information videos to our website in the near future, we will let you know when these are available. Until then, please visit https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/ . Here you will find videos and FAQs for parents about how the scheme is taught and what you can do at home to support your child with reading.