Phonics
At Featherstone Academy, children begin learning Phonics in Nursery. As the children move into Reception, and through Year One and Two, they will continue to follow Ruth Miskin’s Read Write Inc (RWI) programme. In Year Two, children will begin to move onto learning spelling rules, whilst also revising phonics through everyday experiences and learning.
RWI is a structured programme, which supports children’s reading and writing development by providing engaging lessons and resources. RWI allows all children to develop at their own pace as they are taught based on their phonic knowledge. The children will follow the RWI programme until they complete it.
RWI teaches the 44 phonemes which make up the English language and their associated graphemes.
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound; for example, the word cat has 3 phonemes c-a-t.
A grapheme is the written representation of the phoneme. For example the letter c represents the first phoneme you hear at the start of the word cat.
When using RWI to read the children will:
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learn that sounds are represented by written letters
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learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts
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learn how to blend sounds
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learn to read words using ‘Fred Talk’
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read lively stories featuring words they have learned to sound out
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show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions.
When using RWI to write the children will:
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learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent 44 sounds.
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learn to write words by saying the sounds in Fred Talk
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write simple sentences.
RWI teaches sounds in 3 sets. Each one has a rhyme to help write or remember it. Click here to see a list of these sets and the corresponding rhymes.
If you would like any help to understand phonics further or to support your child, please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher or member of staff.