Twydall Primary School uses the “Read Write Inc” scheme to teach phonics.

Intent – What are we trying to achieve with our curriculum? 

At Twydall, we want all of our children to become confident and fluent readers and writers with highly developed communication skills. We believe we can do this by providing engaging and motivating experiences from them to learn from. Our school wish to support our pupils with the life skills necessary for the next steps in their education, therefore, ensuring all aspects of English are taught to a high quality, is a top priority for us. As a school with a high focus on reading, we aim for our pupils to gain not only a love of reading, but also to read for pleasure and dive into a world where they are able to explore their imagine and be encouraged to become writers themselves.  

Implementation – How is our curriculum delivered? 

At Twydall Primary School, every child is given the best start to early reading through the Read Write Inc Phonics scheme which incorporates both reading and writing. 

Nursery 

Children are taught through regular, planned opportunities to listen carefully and talk extensively about what they hear, see and do. Furthermore, children experience listening activities through their day to day exploration of the nursery stations, which have been deliberately designed, initiated by the children's current interests and learning. 

Children who show a strong an understanding and ability to discriminate environmental sounds will be targeted to access small group phonic sessions that will introduce Set 1 letters and sounds. 

Year R, Year 1 and Year 2 

All children from Year R to Year 2 receive daily phonic lessons beginning with 30 minutes at the start of Reception and building to an hour. 

Children will learn to: 

1. Read letters by their ‘sounds’ 

2. Blend these sounds into words 

3. Read the words in a story. 

Children will be taught to say the sound for the letter and not the letter name, so ‘m’ as in ‘mat’, not ‘em’; 

‘s’ as in ‘sun’ not ‘es’. 

The pupils in Reception learn Set 1 Speed Sounds: these are sounds written with one letter: 

m,a,s,d,t,I,n,p,g,o,c,k,u,b,f,e,l,h,r,j,v,y,w,z,x 

and sounds written with two letters (your child will call these ‘special friends’) 

sh, ch, th, ng, nk, ck. 

Set 2 Speed Sounds 

ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo. ar, or, air, ir, ou, oy 

In Year 1 the pupils will review set 2 sounds and learn set 3 sounds: 

ea, oi, a-e, i-e, o-e, u-e, aw, are, ur, er, ow, ai, oa, ew, ire, ear, ure, tion.tious, cious, e 

Children are taught in vertical groups and assessed at least termly or more frequently if required.  

Children in years 5 and 6 who continue to need support with learning how to use phonics to read and write will be taught using resources from the Read Write Inc Fresh Start scheme that is specially designed to teach older children. 

Impact – How do we know? 

We aim to ensure that all pupil’s attainment and progress in both Reading and Writing are in line with or exceed their potential. Through regular assessment, pupils are highlighted and then interventions and support is put in place to ensure that they achieve the best they can. We aim for all children to succeed at learning to read and write using phonics as a starting point for further English learning. 

Parents can help support their children's phonic development by logging on to the following website; https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/ 

This site contains videos that explain how we teach phonics and ways you can help at home. Including practising the sounds that letters make and supporting with reading.