At Tynsel Parkes CE Primary Academy, we aim to develop a lifelong love and passion for reading by sharing a wide range of high quality texts and genres with the children. It is our goal that when children leave Tynsel Parkes the children will all be enthusiastic, confident readers ready for the next stage of their education.
The teaching of reading in our academy is consistently planned through the use of the systematic, synthetic phonics programme: Read Write Inc.
Read Write Inc. Phonics is a method of teaching reading and writing, which is centred on learning the sounds of the letters (phonics) and then blending them together to read words. The children also learn to break down words into individual sounds in order to write them.
When using RWI to read the children will:
• Learn to read effortlessly so that they can put all their energy into understanding what they read.
• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts.
• Learn to read words using Fred Talk
• Learn to read words by blending the sounds together.
• Read lively stories featuring words they have learnt to sound out.
• Show that they understand the stories by answering ‘Find It’ and ‘Prove it’ discussion questions.
What is Fred Talk?
When using Read Write Inc. Phonics, teachers will introduce your child to a toy frog called Fred once he or she is ready to start reading words.
Fred can only say the sounds in a word and needs your child to help him read the word. Fred will say the sounds and children will work out the word. For example, Fred will say the sounds c–a–t, and children will say the word cat, or Fred will say sh-i-p, and children will say ship. This is Fred Talk: sounding out the word .
How will I know how to pronounce the phonic sounds? (Please listen to how to say the sounds to keep this consistent at home and school.)
http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/
When using RWI to write the children will:
- Spell effortlessly so that they can put their energy into working out what they want to write.
- Learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds (graphemes).
- Learn to write words by saying the sounds in Fred Talk.
- Learn to write simple and then increasingly complex sentences.
- Compose a range of texts using discussion prompts.
- Compose stories based on picture strips.
- Write simple sentences.
Blending
Children learn to read words by blending the letter sounds that are in the Speed Sound sets. Help your child learn to read words by sound-blending e.g. c-a-t = cat. Help children to say the pure sounds, as quickly as they can and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word.
Ways to support your children form their letters:
To help the children with their writing, we use the following rhymes to help them to remember the correct letter formation. It would be most helpful, if you wish to support your child at home with their writing, if you also referred to these rhymes.
Our Reading Books
We encourage children to read a wide and varied range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, enjoying reading both at home and at school. The reading books will enable children to practice and apply their reading knowledge and skills. We have invested in a fully-decodable reading scheme which is book banded and in line with age related expectations (EYFS, KS1 and KS2). The books have explicit links the Read Write Inc. sounds ensuring the children are able to read independently, gaining in confidence and fluency. We use the Collins ‘Big Cat’ alongside the Read Write Inc. scheme for the children and supplement with other high quality texts that feed directly into the book banding system. The way that our books are organised is vital to the way we teach our children to read. Tynsel Parkes is very fortunate to have a lovely library that children can take books home to share with their families and friends.
Reading Material To View online
http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/
http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/alphablocks
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds
http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk
Children will take part with Guided Reading sessions throughout the week, Guided Reading will expose children to many key texts across a range of genres from a number of authors. During the sessions children will focus on their reading skills. However, reading is not limited to English lessons and is promoted and integrated throughout the whole curriculum at Tynsel Parkes.
Reading Ambassadors
Our Reading Ambassadors have been chosen for their love of reading and their enthusiasm to share this with others.
They share this across the school in a number of ways.
Library
Before a new book goes into the library, at least one of our ambassadors will read and review it. They can then help children by recommending the books to others that might enjoy it. This can be a tough job as they only have one week to read the book before it is placed on the shelves but they sometimes manage to complete them in a night!
Assemblies
The ambassadors organise whole-school assemblies; they celebrate children’s success in our Five Star Reading Scheme, pull winners out for the Reading competitions and communicate key messages about reading to the school.
Reading Cafes
The class with the most 5 star readers will be able to take part in a reading café at the end of each half term! The reading ambassadors help to run this and share stories with children.
Reading Buddies
Our ambassadors support reading across school every week; they will have a timetable of children or classes to read with regularly. They will share their love of reading anything (newspapers, magazines, comics, sports reports) with other children and help them to choose books from the library that they will enjoy.
Stock-picks
At least once a year, the ambassadors will help Mr Baxter to restock our library with newly released books as well as old classics that have been read so much that they need replacing. If anyone has any book requests for the library at any time in the year, please ask our ambassadors!
The Reading Environment
Children will be involved the design and creation of reading environments in school. They will help to generate ideas and also to help to create the environments where children can read, find fantastic reading books, or create a themed display linked to an author or class text.
