Phonics - Read Write Inc

At Pensans School we use Read Write Inc - a progressive, systematic synthetic phonics approach to teach children to read.

Daily phonics sessions begin in our nursery where children are taught how to make and differentiate between sounds, as well as the fundamentals of speaking and listening.

In the EYFS and KS1 (and through to LKS2 where appropriate) children continue with daily phonics lessons, using the synthetic phonics approach which teaches them the pure sounds that individual and groups of letters make. 

In the earliest stages of learning to read children develop their decoding, fluency and comprehension by reading and re-reading books from our reading scheme - Read Write Inc. Books are carefully matched to their current phonic knowledge to enable them to use phonics as the primary strategy to work out new words. 

Five key principles underpin the teaching in all Read Write Inc. sessions

Purpose – know the purpose of every activity and share it with the children, so they know the one thing they should be thinking about

Participation – ensure every child participates throughout the lesson. Partnership work is fundamental to learning

Praise – ensure children are praised for effort and learning, not ability

Pace – teach at an effective pace and devote every moment to teaching and learning

Passion – be passionate about teaching so children can be engaged emotionally

Set 1 sounds are begun to be learnt in the summer term in Nursery and pupils learn the GPCs in a specific order. The cycle for teaching is attached below. Once children are secure in Set 1, they then move on to set 2 and set 3 following the correct assessments. Below is a chart that shows the order the sounds are taught in each set.