Read Write Inc

Early Reading (Read Write Inc.)

Subject Lead - Miss S Cawkwell

At Priory Lane Community School, we are all readers!

Reading is a vital part of the national curriculum and critical to ensuring that all of our children become successful and confident readers. Through a rigorous programme of study, the children will develop the skills they need in order to succeed in their daily lives, both at school and at home.

Learning to read is one of the most important skills our children will learn at school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read to the best of their ability.

We want our children to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. We want our children to learn to read and then to keep on reading – to read widely and often and become lifelong readers. Research shows that children who learn to read quickly go on to succeed in school and in life.

The national curriculum states that children should:-

read easily, fluently and with good understanding
develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

At Priory Lane Community School we use the Read Write Inc (RWI) phonics programme to enable children to become successful readers as quickly as possible. The programme is specifically designed to create confident speakers and fluent readers. It integrates phonics with comprehension and spelling. Children are taught how to identify grapheme/ phoneme correspondences through fun illustrations and catchy rhymes. Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 access daily Read Write Inc lessons in ability groups. We follow the programme explicitly and with fidelity. Assessments are completed on a regular basis in order to place children in the correct reading groups and ensure that all children make at least good progress.

Read Write Inc. is based on 5 Ps:

PRAISE – children learn quickly in a positive climate

PACE – good pace is essential to the lesson

PURPOSE – every part of the lesson has a specific purpose

PASSION – this is a very prescriptive programme. It is the energy, enthusiasm and passion that teachers put into the lesson that brings the teaching and learning to life

PARTICIPATION – A strong feature of Read Write Inc. lessons is partner work and the partners ‘teaching’ each other.

Read Write Inc at Priory Lane Community School looks like:

Children start by learning Set 1 sounds using picture cues and catchy phrases. They then move on to Set 2 and 3 when ready
Fred the Frog helps children to ‘Fred Talk’ sounds in order to blend them together to first hear and then read simple words. For example, c-a-t “cat” and s-i-ng “sing”
Children take part in engaging and fast paced lessons
Children read books that are closely matched books to their increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words
Book bag books are sent home which also match the books and sounds taught in class
Stories are re-read in order to develop fluency, comprehension and confidence
Children are given lots of opportunities to read and write across many other subjects and are always encouraged to use their super phonics skills to support them! These may include reading instructions for experiments in science, word problems in maths or finding out about an artist in art