Early Reading and Phonics

The Teaching of Early Reading and Phonics

At Hetton Primary School, our aim is to ensure that children can read confidently, fluently and for both pleasure and information.

We instil a passion for reading within our children from an early age. We do this through daily story time, inviting reading areas and ensuring adults demonstrate an enthusiasm to read. Our classrooms house a range of different reading books ranging from storybook and poetry to information texts. 

As a school, we have recently (September 2021) invested in the Read, Write Inc Phonic programme. Through this the children are exposed to a range of grapheme/sound representations, learn to blend in order to read through "Fred Talk" and develop their ability to read on sight with fluency. The children take home a book bag book at least weekly, which allows the children to practise the skills they have been learning in school at home with their parents. As well as this, the children have all been given an Oxford Owl login which allows teachers to allocate an e-book for each child. 

Phonic lessons take place daily and are followed with a storybook session when children are 'ready'. Speed sound lessons are used to expose the children to a range of sound/grapheme correspondences and then through the 'storybook' sessions they work on their application of reading and the development of fluency. 

Please find below some links that you may find useful. 

RWI Information

RWI Phonics Virtual Classroom

Special friends, Fred talk, read the word!