Phonics

At Bowes, we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident readers who are passionate about reading.

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds! More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.

We achieve this together through:

• A ‘Read, Write, Inc’ systematic approach to phonics development and acquisition
• Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school
• Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

At Bowes, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start in learning how to read. We have put together a guide to show you how we teach phonics together with some useful links.

Miranda Thompson, our Deputy Headteacher is our English lead teacher, so if you have any questions about phonics, please contact the school who can refer you to her. Please take the time to read the information as it will provide invaluable knowledge as to how you can best help and support your child in reading.

Nursery

Every day, short phonic sessions are taught in small groups. Children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.

Reception

In Reception, all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is taught through 20-minute daily phonics sessions.

The children learn:

• 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below;
• learn to read words using ‘Fred Talk’ and sound blending;
• read from a range of storybooks and non-fiction books matched to their phonic knowledge.

In addition to phonics sessions, the children work with the teachers in small focus reading groups once a week. In these groups, the children are given the opportunity to read books matched to their current reading stage.

Year One & Year Two

Children follow the same format as Reception but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Daily phonic sessions last for 20 minutes. 

Once the children become more confident in their use of phonics and have completed the set of RWI books, they will move onto a range of other early reading books.

Children will be taught how to read as follows:

Fred Talk

We use pure sounds (‘m’ not ‘muh’, ’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.

Set 1
Sound	Rhyme
m	Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain.
a	Round the apple, down the leaf.
s	Slide around the snake
d	Round the dinosaur's back, up his neck and down to his feet.
t	Down the tower, across the tower,
i	Down the insects body, dot for the head.
n	Down Nobby and over the net.
p	Down the plait, up and over the pirates face.
g	Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl
o	All around the orange
c	Curl around the caterpillar
k	Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg
u	Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle
b	Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel
f	Down the stem and draw the leaves
e	Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg
l	Down the long leg
h	Down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
sh	Slither down the snake, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
r	Down the robot's back, then up and curl
j	Down his body, curl and dot
v	Down a wing, up a wing
y	Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak's head.
w	Down, up, down, up the worm.
th	Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
z	Zig-zag-zig, down the zip.
ch	Curl around the caterpillar, then down the horse's head to the hooves and over his back
qu	Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl
x	Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way
ng	A thing on a string
nk	I think I stink

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q

The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.

Step 1:

Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.

Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.

Step 2:

The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds.

Long-vowel sound	Set 2 Speed Sound cards	Set 3 Speed Sound cards
ay	ay: may I play	a-e: make a cake	ai: snail in the rain
ee	ee: what can you see	ea: cup of tea	e: he me we she be
igh	igh: fly high	i-e: nice smile
ow	ow: blow the snow	o-e: phone home	ao: goat in a boat
oo	oo: poo at the zoo	u-e: huge brute	ew: chew the stew
oo	oo: look at a book
ar	ar: start the car
or	or: shut the door	aw: yawn at dawn
air	air: that’s not fair	are: share and care
ir	ir: whirl and twirl	ur: nurse for a purse	er: a better letter
ou	ou: shout it out	ow: brown cow
oy	oy: toy for a boy	oi: spoil the boy
ire		ire: fire fire!
ear		ear: hear with your ear
ure		ure: sure it’s pure?

Nonsense words (Alien words)          

As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term. 

Step 3:

Children will be introduced to ‘Ditty books’ when they successfully begin to read single words. The short vowels should be kept short and sharp.

Children use sound-blending (Fred Talk) to read short ditties. They will take these books home once they have read and discussed them in class.

Within all the books children will have red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and ‘challenge words’ to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds the children have been learning and are easily decodable.

 

• Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.
• Once your child has been introduced and taught these words in school, we will send them home for you to continue practising with your child.

Order of Story books

Children will follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One developing a growing confidence and love of reading.

Books

Red Ditty 1-10

Green 1-10

Purple 1-10

Pink 1-10

Orange 1-12

Yellow 1-10

Blue 1-10

Grey 1-13

Please see the attachments below that indicate which green words

are introduced in each book.

To help at home

Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers. Please help them to read and give lots of praise!

Phonics Screening Check Year One

What is the Year 1 phonics screening check?

The Year 1 phonics screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.

It will identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills. They will then be able to retake the check so that schools can track pupils until they are able to decode.