At Flushdyke, we use the Read Write Inc. (RWI) programme to get children off to a flying start with their reading and writing. RWI is a structured programme which integrates phonics, comprehension, writing, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and handwriting. It helps us to create a consistent approach across Reception and Key Stage 1 as we all work together to ensure our children are confident readers and writers.

Our ultimate mission is to ensure that every child ‘gets out of the reading gate’ as soon as possible enabling them to access our ambitious curriculum to its fullest. 

"The teaching of reading is a strength of the school. Leaders have focused on ensuring that there is high-quality teaching of reading from the moment pupils start school. The phonics curriculum is delivered with consistency and skill. Pupils quickly learn to become proficient, fluent readers." Ofsted, October 2022

INTENT

RWI is a carefully structured systematic, synthetic, phonics programme designed for pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. The alphabetic code is taught in a certain order to ensure that children learn to read and write grapheme/phoneme correspondences accurately and fluently.

Once children become 'speedy' at reading the first five sounds taught in Reception, they begin their journey to becoming independent blenders when reading words. We teach them how to use their reading routine (‘Special Friends, Fred Talk, Read the Word’) to read words accurately, build their fluency and become speedy word readers at each stage of the programme. Children then read matched texts, which only contain the sounds that they can read accurately. This means that your child will love bringing home their reading book and showing you what they have been learning in school. We ask that you support them in building their fluency at home by re-reading texts each day to develop their fluency, expression and their understanding of what they are reading. 

IMPLEMENTATION

Children in Reception have a daily phonics lesson for 20 minutes in the first half term. They work really hard to learn the first 25 sounds and begin to practise blending sounds to make words. Once they can read words, they will begin to bring home their reading books to practise their reading routine. As the year progresses, phonics lessons increase to 60 minutes by the end of their first year. In each lesson, children will learn/review a sound, read sounds speedily, read real and nonsense words, spell with Fred Fingers, complete reading activities linked to their matched storybook and complete linked writing activities to secure their growing understanding of the alphabetic code. Your child may come home talking about Fred! Fred can only speak in sounds so when your child comes to an unfamiliar word, they may need Fred’s help to ‘Fred Talk’ and sometimes they help Fred to blend the sounds to make words. All of our Reading Teachers have weekly training and coaching to make sure that every child gets out of the 'reading gate' as quickly as possible.

IMPACT

We are proud of our phonics teaching at Flushdyke. In 2023, 100% of our Year 1 pupils achieved the expected standard in the Phonics Screening Check with an average score of 38 out of 40. Our target for 2024 is for 100% of our Year 1 pupils to achieve the expected standard.