Meynell Primary School | Read Write Inc Phonics

Teaching and Learning of Phonics

At Meynell we teach phonics using Read Write Inc. Five key principles underpin the teaching in all phonics sessions:

Purpose – children know the purpose of each activity so they know the one thing they should be thinking about.
Participation – every child participates throughout the lesson. Partnership work is fundamental to learning.
Praise – children are praised for effort and learning, not ability.
Pace – lessons are taught at an effective pace and every moment is devoted to teaching and learning.
Passion – we teach RWI with passion so children can be engaged emotionally.

FS1

Children are introduced to Fred and he is used to teach the children how to orally blend.

FS2 and KS1

Children are taught the sounds in the order of the Read Write Inc. scheme of learning.
Phonics is taught for 20 minutes a day in FS2 and an hour in KS1.
Children are assessed on entry and half-termly using the Read Write Inc. assessments.
Comprehension activities, as well as sentence work and reading, are done daily.

Speed Sounds

Set 1:

m a s d t i n p g o c k u b

f e l h sh ck r j v y w th z

ch qu x ng nk

Set 3:

ea oi a-e i-e o-e u-e aw aw are ur

er ow ai oa ew ire ear

ure tious tion

Set 2:

ay ee igh ow oo oo ar

or air ir ou oy

Fred Talk

Fred the frog helps children read. He can say the sounds in words, but he cannot say the whole word, so children have to help him.

To help children read, Fred (the teacher) says the sounds and the children say the word.

Fred in your head

Once children can sound out a word, we teach them to say the sounds in their head. The teacher holds up the words to give the children time to mime the sounds, and then pushes the word forward as a signal to say the word together, until they can say the word straight away.

We show them how to do this by:

Whispering the sounds and then saying the whole word.
Mouthing the sounds silently and then saying the whole word.
Saying the whole word straight away.

Fred Fingers

Fred fingers are used to spell words. Children say the sounds as they press the sounds onto fingers. Children have the fingers facing them and press the sounds from left to right.

Green words

Phonics word cards used for children to practise word blending for reading.

Red words

Red words are common words with a low-frequency grapheme e.g. said, son, your.