At Saint Patrick’s we follow an adapted version of the Read, Write, Inc. Scheme for teaching phonics from Nursery to year 2 and additionally in KS2 for children who need extra support.
But firstly…What is phonics?
Phonics
Getting the Pure sounds right is a really important way to help at home.
We teach phonics from the very start of nursery to help children have lots of repeated expose to the sounds.
In Nursery phonics is taught for 20 minutes daily, focuses on the set 1 sounds, helping children learn bouncy and stretchy sounds, teaching them the letter formation rhymes and focuses on aural blending.
Stretchy sounds stretch at the start of a word and make one long sound eg. mmmmmmum
The stretchy consonant sounds are:
f l m n r s v z sh th ng nk
Bouncy sounds are sharp, clear sounds that we can say multiple times to practice at the start of a word eg. a-a-apple, b-b-ball
The bouncy set 1 sounds are:
b c k d g h j p qu t w x y ch a e i o u
Each Letter in the Read, Write Inc. scheme comes with a letter formation rhyme to help children learn how to write the letters. You can use these at home to help when they are writing. Remember to keep it fun, it doesn’t always have to be writing with a pencil. Why not try writing letters in flour on a tray, drawing in chalk outside on a wall, writing in the air with their magic finger!
Aural blending is focused on children listening to sounds and trying to hear the sounds blending into a word. The scheme uses a frog called Fred who can only talk in pure sounds to help children develop this skill and we call it Fred Talk.
In Reception Class we build on the learning of Nursery by building on the set 1 sounds to be able to read and write green words with the set 1 sounds and then move on to set 2 sounds. Reception also learn about red words.
Green words are words that we can use phonics to sound out or write. we use sound buttons under the sounds to help us count how many sounds are in each word.
Red words are words that we can’t sound out because they don’t sound like the sounds we already know such as I, the, you and said.
Year 1 and 2 continue learning phonics to embed their knowledge of phonics for reading and writing. They both complete 20 minutes of taught phonics daily and use it as part of their English lesson additionally.
Please see our progression guide to see how phonics develops from EYFS to year 2.
Phonics at Home
At home please remember to have fun with phonics. Reading their books is very important but also look for fun opportunities to practice phonics like playing I spy, having a letter hunt on the way to school, use fly swots to swot sounds when you see them, hide sounds around the room on post it notes and ask children to spell words with them, practice writing sounds in glitter, flour, playdough etc. It’s all about little and often opportunities to develop their knowledge.
For more Information about Read, Write, Inc. phonics please visit their parents page.
There are a range of Read, Write, Inc flashcards and workbooks available on Amazon if you wished to have these at home for additional support.
Thank you to all the parents who came to our EYFS stay and play phonics sessions to see phonics in action. For those of you who couldn’t attend or would just like to see the presentation again please click the below link.
