How your child will be taught to read
Before you start to teach your child, practice saying the sounds below.These are the sounds we use to speak in English. Children initially begin using pictures for each sound, this will help children recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
Fred Talk
We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.
At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.
The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred - view video
RWI Set 1, 2 and 3
The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.
STEP 1:
Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
| SET 1 | |
| Sound | Rhyme |
| m | Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain. |
| a | Round the apple, down the leaf. |
| s | Slide around the snake |
| d | Round the dinosaur's back, up his neck and down to his feet |
| t | Down the tower, across the tower, |
| i | Down the insects body, dot for the head. |
| n | Down Nobby and over the net. |
| p | Down the plait, up and over the pirates face. |
| g | Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl |
| o | All around the orange |
| c | Curl around the caterpillar |
| k | Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg |
| u | Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle |
| b | Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel |
| f | Down the stem and draw the leaves |
| e | Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg |
| l | Down the long leg |
| h | Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
| sh | Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
| r | Down the robot's back, then up and curl |
| j | Down his body, curl and dot |
| v | Down a wing, up a wing |
| y | Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head. |
| w | Down, up, down, up the worm. |
| th | Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back |
| z | Zig-zag-zig, down the zip. |
| ch | Curl around the caterpillar, , then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back |
| qu | Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl |
| x | Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way |
| ng | A thing on a string |
| nk | I think I stink |
At this stage we do not use the letter names
Use the following link to support your pronunciation sounds correctly.
STEP 2:
The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds.
| Long vowel sound |
SET 2 Speed Sound cards |
SET 3 Speed Sound cards | |
| ay | ay: may I play | a-e: make a cake | ai: snail in the rain |
| ee | ee: what can you see | ea: cup of tea | e: he me we she be |
| igh | igh: fly high | i-e: nice smile | |
| ow | ow: blow the snow | o-e: phone home | ao: goat in a boat |
| oo | oo: poo at the zoo | u-e: huge brute | ew: chew the stew |
| oo | oo: look at a book | ||
| ar | ar: start the car | ||
| or | or: shut the door | aw: yawn at dawn | |
| air | air: that’s not fair | are: share and care | |
| ir | ir: whirl and twirl | ur: nurse for a purse | er: a better letter |
| ou | ou: shout it out | ow: brown cow | |
| oy | oy: toy for a boy | oi: spoil the boy | |
| ire | ire: fire fire! | ||
| ear | ear: hear with your ear | ||
| ure | ure: sure it’s pure? | ||
Nonsense words (Alien words)- What 'a load' or nonsense!
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. These words provide endless opportunities for children to apply and practice their thinking in a range of different contexts.
STEP 3:
Within all the RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to 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.
Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.
During the RWI session children will read the book three times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold, edit or build a sentence’.
Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.
Build a sentence is to give children the opportunity to create their own sentence to that shows the meaning of a word and edit a sentence allows the children to critique a sentence using their knowledge of spelling punctuation and grammar. Children complete a longer piece of independent writing, which gives them the opportunity to show off their creativity and to practice their spelling, grammar and punctuation.
To help at home
Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers, relating to their reading stage. You will find they will bring home a phonics based book, this will aid application, speed and fluency- developing speedy reading! Following on from this, they will bring a comprehension based book which will begin to enrich their reading, which will require decoding skills. Only then, children will bring home enriched reading books which will enhance their understanding via inspirational language promoting depth to their understanding.
Useful websites for Parents
Please find 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.
Information and resources to support phonics learning at home
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
Fun games for the children to play
BBC Bitesize - many games to play covering all areas of the curriculum