Phonics

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Intent

At Christ Church and St Peter’s, we want every child to leave our school with the skills of an outstanding reader. We are passionate about our children becoming confident and enthusiastic readers and we want to open them up to the possibilities that reading offers.The teaching of phonics helps to provide the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading easier. In our school, we use the RWI approach and this enables us to have a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics. The children are placed in the relevant ability groups and taught what THEY need to know. RWI is not just confined to EYFS and KS1. Children in KS2 have access to the programme according to their needs.

Implementation

RWI sessions are taught 4 times a week for up to 40 minutes. The children will be taught in ability groups using their most recent RWI assessment.

In the first few weeks, Foundation Stage will follow Letters and Sounds Phase 1 to, initially, allow children time to develop their speaking and listening skills. After this, all of the children should be taught the Set 1 sounds following the Read Write Inc. scheme. These are the 26 sounds for each letter in the alphabet plus some common consonant digraphs (ch, sh, ng, nk, th). The majortity of the children in EYFS should begin to access the Set 2 sounds of the curriculum in the summer term.

By the end of Year 1, the children should know the Set 1, 2 and 3 sounds. At the end of Year 1 a phonics screening check is carried out and, in order for the children to be successful, they need to know and be able to use the wide range of sounds that are taught in the phonics curriculum.

Children in Year 2 are given the opportunity to continue their phonics if there are still significant gaps in their knowledge and/or if they failed to pass the Year 1 phonics screening check.

Children in Year 3 and 4 will be given the opportunity to continue their phonics if there are still significant gaps that will stop them from accessing the Key Stage 2 curriculm.

Children are assessed at chosen points throughout the school year using the RWI assessment. The children’s current RWI teacher will carry out the assessment and pass the information on to the Phonics Leader.

Planning a RWI Session

Children will be grouped according to their ability. Teachers will need to use this information when planning RWI sessions.
Books of the correct colour/ability level will need to be prepared.
Reading and Writing Activities will need to be chosen according to our school’s daily timetable and the needs of the children.
Speed Sounds will need to be planned for using the children’s current assessment.

2. Within a typical phonics lesson at Christ Church & St Peter's you will see:

Pace
Praise
Practise
Application

Each lesson will begin with a 10 minute Speed Sound lesson. These lessons are planned for using the children’s current assessments. The children will learn to ‘Say, Read and Write’ their sound. Some sounds may be revisited several times until the children are confident in using them.

The remainder of the lesson will involve a variety of Reading and Writing Activities based around the book. The children will read this book throughout the week. The reading books will have sounds in that children have already learned, this allows them time to practise reading them with confidence. Each activity chosen will allow the children time to develop their reading skills and they will have a deep understanding of what they have read.