Phonics
Intent
At Kaizen Primary, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that Read, Write, Inc (RWI) phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. Through RWI phonics children learn a simple alphabetic code followed by a more complex code. All reading books progress cumulatively, matched to the sound’s children are learning in school and already know.
Implementation
Teachers teach RWI using a detailed, proven step-by-step teaching scheme; where children are first taught simple Grapheme (written form of a sound) Phoneme (orally saying a sound) Correspondence, to accurately blend taught sounds, to decode simple words containing taught graphemes and then to read specifically designed books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the common exception words.
Children are taught to:
- decode letter/sounds correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills
- read ‘tricky’ (red words) on sight
- understand what they read
- read aloud with fluency and expression
- write confidently, with a strong focus on vocabulary and grammar
- spell quickly and easily by segmenting the sounds in words
- acquire good handwriting
Staff ensure that children read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the ‘red words’. This is so that, early on, they experience success and gain confidence that they are readers. Alongside this, the teachers read a wide range of stories, poetry and non-fiction to children: they are soon able to read these texts for themselves. Adults read stories to the children every day where a love of reading is promoted.
For those children who are not making the expected level of progress in phonics and reading will have 1:1 or small group interventions. With RWI one-to-one tutoring for our slowest progress readers in YR to Y4 and RWI Fresh Start for those children in Y5/6 that are below age-related expectations, we ensure that no child gets left behind.
Children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 are assessed using the RWI assessments test at the end of each half term at a minimum. The test identifies the children's progress so far as well as their targets. In addition to this, children in Year 1 are also assessed using a phonics screening check regularly. Regular assessment using the phonics screening test, alongside the RWI assessment test, enables us to stream children for phonics and RWI, ensuring the teaching they receive is tailored to the level they are at. The final Year 1 phonics test takes place in June. The check is designed to confirm whether individual children have learned sufficient phonic decoding and blending skills to an appropriate standard. The test consists of 40 words – it is a combination of 20 real words and 20 pseudo words (nonsense words) for the child to read 1:1 with their teacher.
Throughout the year we invite parents to phonics workshops and training sessions, which support the parents in listening to their child read and encouraging their child’s development of phonics. Home-school readers are also phonics based and at least one book each week will match the phonics group in which the child is in; ensuring continuity and these are at the level of each individual child. These are changed on a weekly basis.
We understand that children have missed opportunities of learning because of the COVID outbreak and the resulting distance and blended learning models that were used in the previous school years. Our current teaching model ensures that any missed opportunities are addressed before teaching new concepts and topics. This pre teaching approach ensures that children are able to access the new learning and build upon their knowledge and skills.
Aspects of the Phonics curriculum are embedded in learning within the provision of SEND learning to ensure that all children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum. Children with high levels of need have a broad curriculum offer, linking into National Curriculum themes, but with scaffolded learning which meets their needs, ensuring they are also making good progress from their initial starting points.
Impact
The result of phonics teaching at our school will be that children will have a secure knowledge of phonics, enabling them to become confident readers and access all learning across the curriculum, making expected progress or more, with a life-long love of reading. Children will be able to apply the skills learnt to their writing as they are confident in choosing the correct phoneme to grapheme correspondence.
Please click here to see the subject overview for Phonics.