RWI Lessons
The teaching of Phonics at Gainsborough
At Gainsborough we learn to read using Read, Write, Inc. This phonics programme is taught from Reception to Year 2 and helps children to read words and develop their writing skills. A Reading Leader oversees all the children to ensure that they are grouped correctly and supports staff in delivering outstanding lessons to all children.
At the start of Nursery we start children on their journey to reading. We read lots of stories and rhymes with the children to help them hear the patterns of reading. We encourage the children to tell us stories and write them all down into a book. At story time we can tell their stories to the rest of the class. This helps develop your child’s confidence in telling their own stories. We play games such as listening to sounds in the environment, oral blending games (put your hands on your h-ea-d) and start reading words in the environment. By summer term we begin to learn the letter sounds to get us started in reading. The letter sounds all have a picture which goes with it, to help the children to remember them.
When we take our next step into Reception, teachers will make sure children have a flying start by teaching them the letter sounds and how to use these sounds to make words. They continue to learn new stories and rhymes to continue to develop their spoken language.
After the first half term, Reception will join Year 1 and 2 in grouped RWI lessons. The Reading Leader assesses all the children and puts them into their correct group.
During RWI lessons children learn;
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a new sound every day.
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to read words with the new sound in. Teachers encourage them to use ‘Fred Talk’ to sound the word out, and try to do ‘Fred in your Head’.
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to read red words, which are tricky words that we cannot sound out. The children think of different rhymes to help them to remember how to spell these.
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a new story every week. During the lesson your child will learn how to read with more fluency, how to change their voices as they are reading to make it more interesting.
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how to answer questions about what they have been reading to make sure they understand the story.
When they are assessed, the teachers know where to go next to help them become confident readers. We want children to move through the programme as quickly as possible to help them to become expert readers before they go into Year 3.
Although our lessons sound very busy, we aim to make each session as fun and engaging as possible. Every lesson counts and it is important for all children to be involved.
Kwpp an eye out for our weekly newsletter, this has QR codes linking you to a video for your child to watch at home. They can watch this on their own or with you, so you can keep up to date with what they are learning in school. There is a link for Reception, Year 1 and 2 but if you would like to watch all three, this will always help your children to really know their sounds.
Lastly, reading anything will help your child to enjoy reading. From reading road signs to different books, words are all around us and RWI gives us the key to unlock the whole world of reading before our eyes.
For more information on the RWI phonics programme follow the link below. It provides access to lots of useful videos about Phonics and the RWI programme we follow at Gainsborough.
Please click on the link below to watch a video that explains more. It will help you and you child to say the sounds in the pure, correct way.
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/
Have lots of fun practising together at home!