West Leigh Infant School

At West Leigh Infants, we aim to foster a love of reading for all our pupils. We encourage them to read both for pleasure and in order to gain information. The children are reading all the time in a range of lessons and contexts including, for example, reading word problems in maths lessons; instructions for a board game during golden time; or an index in an atlas during a geography lesson.

Children who read and are read to regularly experience so many different worlds.   More importantly, reading gives your child the tools to become independent, life-long learners.

We achieve this together through:

• Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school
• Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

How We Teach Reading 

At West Leigh Infant School, we use Read Write Inc. Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their literacy.  RWI is a complete phonics and reading programme that helps all children to learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.  The programme is designed for children aged 4-7 and was developed by Ruth Miskin.

More information can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents.

Reception

In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.

The children:

• learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below
• learn to read words using ‘Fred talk’ and sound blending
• read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge
• work well with partners
• develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions
• learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases

• learn to write words by using ‘Fred Talk’
• learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write 

  Year One & Year Two

Children follow the same format as Reception but will work on more complex sounds while continuing to read books appropriate to their reading level.

Sessions of RWI phonics last between 20 and 45 minutes depending on the Year Group and take place 4 times in a week.

As soon as your child starts to read the Read Write Inc. Phonics Storybooks, they will bring home a storybook. This is the same version they will have read at school.  Your child will have read this story three times with their reading teacher, so should be able to read the story confidently.

A brief explanation of how to follow the activities is included in the books.

Your child will also bring home a book from our school banded reading system. This book builds upon the phonemes and words from the Read Write Inc. Phonics Storybooks they have been reading in class. Your child might need more support in reading these books as they may not have read them before in school.

Within all the RWI books the 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.

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. The Year 1 phonics screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. 

Order of Story books: Children 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. 

To help at home:

Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers. Please help them to read and give lots of praise! Please see the Parent Guide Below for more information.

Useful websites for Parents

Below is a list of websites that you may find useful in helping you and your child learn about phonics. Games and fun activity websites are also included.

http://jollylearning.co.uk/ - Games and information for parents

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ - many games to play

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/ - fun games for the children to play

http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html  - fun games for the children to play

BBC Bitesize - many games to play covering all areas of the curriculum