At Yorkmead, your child will learn to read using the successful reading scheme called ‘Read, Write, Inc. Phonics’. They will learn to read letters by their sounds, blend sounds into words and read words in carefully developed stories. We believe every child can make fast progress and learn to read and we offer additional support to stop children falling behind.
What is RWI Phonics? video
EYFS
Children start by learning a sound for each letter of the alphabet. We use ‘pure sounds’ which means the sounds should be clear and we don’t add an “ugh” sound. This helps children learn to blend more quickly. See the guide below for support with pure sounds.
Pure Sounds-How to say the sounds
Children learn to read with Fred the frog and we run parent workshops to help you understand how to ‘Fred talk’ words and support your child with their early reading.
From nursery, we read stories to children every day and we ask that you do the same.
Once children have learnt a sound for each letter they learn their set 2 sounds. Ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo, ar, or, air, ir, ou and oy. This gives them a way to write each sound in the English language.
Year 1
Once children have mastered set 2 they begin to learn alternative ways to write certain sounds with our set 3 sounds. Once these are secure, children will be all set to pass the phonics screening check.
They will also learn to recognise more RED words (also known as common exception words). These are words that don’t follow the normal rules of letter to sound correspondence like: their, small, want.
Year 2
In year 2, children should be able to read words with all the common sounds so our aim here is to develop their fluency. This means encouraging them to read without sounding-out, unless they get really stuck. It means increasing the amount they read and it means getting them to think about what is happening in the story and to use a ‘story teller voice’
For further information and help about RWI visit the RWI parent page and Oxford Owl support page.
