Intent
At Newburgh Primary School we use the Read, Write Inc phonic scheme to teach the children to read. Throughout the programme, children learn the English alphabetic code: the 150+ graphemes that represent the 44 speech sounds. They rapidly learn the sounds and the letter or group of letters they need to represent the sound in three sets of Speed Sound Lessons.
There are simple and enjoyable mnemonics that help children grasp the letter-sound correspondence and by making the learning fun children embed this tricky skill.
As children progress through the scheme, they are quickly taught to blend letters in sets so that they can experience plenty of success in learning to read simple words.
The lively phonic books are closely matched to the phonic knowledge of each child. We read each book in groups three times. On the first read, children focus on accurate word reading by blending the letters to make each word. On the second read, they are developing fluency and by the third read, the children are able to focus on comprehension.
We passionately believe that by using a clear systematic scheme to teach your child to read that all children will experience success.
Implementation
In Reception, as children learn each individual sound and letter, teachers will share the sounds that the children are learning so that parents can reinforce this learning at home. In order to support your child pronouncing the letter carefully and not adding “uh” onto the letter we suggest that you watch the “How to say the sounds” video.
As soon as children have learnt the first set of sounds they will learn how to blend letters to make words using Fred Talk. Fred is a toy frog that sits on the teachers shoulder during the Speed Sound lessons. Fred can only say the sounds in a word and needs your child’s help read the word. Fred will say the sounds and the children will say the word. For example, Fred will say c-a-t and the children will say cat.
Once children can sound out words we ask them to say the sounds in their heads, “Fred in Your Head”. We hold up a word and give the children time to mime the sounds, and then push forwards the card as a signal to say the word together.
Fred Fingers are used to spell green words. The children say the sound as they press the sounds onto their fingers. To begin with the teacher will tell them how many fingers they will need to show.
Red words are taught as part of the program so that children become familiar with these tricky words. They learn to read these words through repetition.
Special Friends are a combination of two or three letters representing one sound, eg. Ck, ph, igh.
Speedy Green words are taught to improve the fluency. We teach the children first to sound-blend words in the story book but then they practice reading these words at speed so that they can read the story without sounding out each word.
Children are continually assessed in their phonic groups to ensure that children make rapid progress with learning to blend and becoming fluent readers.
