What is Read Write Inc?
Read, Write Inc is a tried and tested, highly successful phonics programme for children aged 4 to 7 who are learning to read and write. It teaches children how to both decode and understand written language to become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. This is achieved by a dynamic approach to teaching phonics that is consistent across the school using the Read, Write Inc phonics resources and fully decodable reading books.
Children are grouped according to their ability in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 to ensure that teaching is matched to their level. Phonics in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 takes place on a daily basis. Children in Key Stage 2 that still require phonics teaching, continue with a specially tailored programme (RWInc) to meet their individual needs.
Shared Reading forms part of the daily phonics lessons and is led by the reading teachers. All texts are linked to the child's phonic ability. Children enjoy one focus text per week and learning activities support accurate and fluent reading to facilitate comprehension. In addition, children take fully decodable reading books home to further practise skills learnt at school. These books are matched to each child's phonics ability and are closely monitored by the reading teachers to ensure that children are reading books of an appropriate level. The home reading book is changed twice a week to ensure that to book has been read enough times to develop and speedy and fluent reading when read by the child, this enables them to spend less time segmenting and blending words and more time understanding what has been read, developing their comprehension skills. Each child visits the school library every week to select a book of their choice to share at home.
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the (Phonemes) sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down (Graphemes). This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well.
We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Once the children have learnt to blend accurately, they start to read with fluency. This is achieved through speedy reading of individual words and repeated reads of their shared reading books. 'Tricky words' such as 'once' 'said' 'the' are not phonetically decodable and these are taught explicitly as part of the reading session. To develop the child's love of stories, we have dedicated story time, across all Key Stages, daily. The teachers read to the children so that they get to know a variety of stories, poetry and information books. They acquire new vocabulary through our word aware teaching, which focuses on embedding new words into their authographic memory.
Children who join the School throughout the year are quickly assessed in phonics and put in the correct group according to their phonics ability. Children progress from Read Write Inc. Phonics to the Read Write Inc. Comprehension in Year 2.