At St Paul’s we believe that the ability to read is fundamental to pupils’ development as independent learners, during their time at school and beyond. Reading is central to our ability to understand, interpret and communicate with each other and the world around us.
Success in reading has a direct effect on progress in all areas of the curriculum; therefore reading is given a high priority at St Paul’s School, enabling the children to become enthusiastic, independent and reflective readers across a wide range and types of literature, including different text types and genres.
The teaching of phonics and early reading is undertaken using the Read, Write Inc scheme.
Children on this scheme have a Read, Write Inc Book Bag book that carefully matches their phonic ability. This book is changed regularly according to the stage of the scheme that children have reached.
The next stage is a book carefully matched to the children’s reading and comprehension level, chosen from a selection of colour-banded books. More information is contained within the Reading Curriculum document below.
At St Paul’s we believe that reading is the most important skill that children learn at school. Reading is the key to future success.
Read Write Inc. teaches synthetic phonics in a structured exciting way. Children will start the scheme when they join the school in Nursery and will work through the scheme until they can read confidently with good understanding. The scheme also supports children’s writing, giving them the tools to spell and compose.
When your child is learning to read there are two crucial things to learn:
Children are taught to read letters or groups of letters by saying the sound(s) they represent; for example, they are taught that the letter l sounds like llllll when we say it. Children can then start to read words by blending the sounds together to make a word. There are 26 letters of the alphabet but they make 44 sounds. Please take some time to watch the following videos to ensure you have the correct pronunciation of each sound.
Fred is a (toy) frog and Fred can’t read! He can only say words in pure sounds. We use ‘Fred talk’ to help blend the sounds together in words to help Fred to read. We then move onto ‘Fred in your head’ to increase our fluency.
The children can’t use the skill of ‘Fred Talk’ or ‘Fred in your head’ for all words, as some do not follow the phonics rule. For example, ‘the’ ‘are’ and ‘some’. Therefore, these are taught as Red words within Read, Write, Inc. We teach them as sight words and the more children are exposed to them, the more they are instilled in their long term memory.
At St Paul’s we have invested in the Bookbag Books which relate to Read, Write Inc. scheme we teach. This means the book your child brings home will always contain sounds and words they have already been taught in school so at home they can practise these confidently. This will help them to consolidate and retain their phonics learning, making them masters of reading!
Whilst your child is learning to blend, we suggest the following games to continue their oral blending skills:
Watch the videos below to help you know how to listen to your child read their Read, Write Inc book.
Children are given a Sound Blending book when they are learning to read simple words.
Ditty books are the first reading books that children take home.
Children are becoming more confident with reading at this level.
Children are becoming more fluent at this level.