admin.eas@ebor.academy | 01964 650214
School logo
Ebor Academy Trust Logo

Phonics

Read, Write Inc

At Easington Primary Academy, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that Read, Write, Inc (RWI) phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. Through RWI phonics children learn a simple alphabetic code followed by a more complex code. All reading books progress cumulatively, matched to the sound’s children are learning and already know. The teaching of phonics is of high priority. 

You can find out more about Read, Write, Inc Phonics by clicking here.

Implementation

  • The systematic teaching of phonics has a high priority throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1. Phonics is taught daily to all children in EYFS, Year 1 and those in Year 2 who have not passed the phonics screening in Year 1 or completed the Read, Write, Inc (RWI) phonics programme.
  • In the EYFS, a vital aspect in the development of essential knowledge and skills in phonics is the use of continuous provision. This means that children are using and developing taught skills throughout the year on a daily/weekly basis.
  • We constantly provide enhancement opportunities to engage learners and link to our topics. We encourage children to be independent in the continuous provision.
  • Children also take part in daily synthetic phonics sessions, which follow the Read Write Inc. scheme. Children are encouraged to transfer the skills they learn in phonics sessions into their independent reading and writing in the continuous provision.
  • Children are taught to:
    • decode letter/sounds correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills
    • read ‘tricky’ (red words) on sight
    • understand what they read
    • read aloud with fluency and expression
    • write confidently, with a strong focus on vocabulary and grammar
    • spell quickly and easily by segmenting the sounds in words
    • acquire good handwriting
  • In addition, children are taught to work effectively with a partner to explain and consolidate what they are learning. This provides the teacher with opportunities to assess learning and to pick up on difficulties, such as children’s poor articulation, or problems with blending or alphabetic code knowledge.
  • Children are grouped, according to their progress in reading rather than their writing. This is because it is known that children’s progress in writing will lag behind progress in reading, especially for those whose motor skills are less well developed.
  • Staff ensure that children read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the ‘red words’. This is so that, early on, they experience success and gain confidence that they are readers. Alongside this, the teachers read a wide range of stories, poetry and non-fiction to children: they are soon able to read these texts for themselves.
  • Adults read stories to the children every day where a love of reading is promoted.
  • For those children who are not making the expected level of progress in phonics and reading will have 1:1 or small group interventions. With RWI one-to-one tutoring for our slowest progress readers in YR to Y4 and RWI Fresh Start for those children inY5/6 that are below age-related expectations, we ensure that no child gets left behind.

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. The children read books in line with their phonics knowledge. Children can then focus on developing fluency and comprehension throughout the school. Embedding the alphabetic code early on means that children quickly learn to write simple words and sentences. Attainment in phonics is measured by the phonics screen Test at the end of Year 1 and ongoing assessment throughout the Read, Write, Inc programme.

 

Phonics Screening Check 21-22

What is the Phonics Screening Check?

Children complete a word-reading check at the end of Year 1 so that parents can be confident their children are being taught to read successfully. Children read 40 words. It takes between two and five minutes. If they do not manage to read 32 of the words, they are given extra support, and repeat the check at the end of Year 2. The ‘pass’ mark of 32 is subject to change by the government and schools will be notified sometime in June of this figure.

All children at Easington Primary Academy will be supported to learn phonics using the RWInc phonics program. In Autumn 2021 all eligible Year 2 pupils will take the Phonics Screening Check. The Government set out the following guidelines. Cancellation of the phonics screening check in June 2021 means incoming Year 2 pupils did not take the check in year 1. In the 2021 to 2022 academic year, it is statutory for schools to administer a past version of the phonics screening check to Year 2 pupils during the second half of the 2021 Autumn Term and return results to their local authority.

The Autumn check is intended to ensure that Year 2 pupils who need support in learning to decode using phonics are not missed. The Autumn check is designed to be as flexible as possible, whilst also minimising any burden that could have arisen from the existing requirement, which would have required all Year 1 and 2 pupils to be assessed concurrently in a short window in the Summer term.

Year 2 pupils who meet the expected standard in phonics in the 2021 Autumn check will not be required to complete any further statutory assessments in phonics. Year 2 pupils who do not meet the expected standard in the 2021 Autumn check will be expected to take the statutory check in June 2022, alongside Year 1 pupils.

Year 3 pupils, who were due to take the statutory check in June 2021 (when they were in year 2), are not required to take the Autumn check. However, at Easington Primary Academy we shall be administering the check to these pupils so we can monitoring their progress and ensure they are reaching expected levels of attainment in reading.

Year 1 will take the Phonics Screening check during the Summer term, June 2022.

Details of our Phonics Screening Check (produced in 2020) can be downloaded by clicking the link below, which provides some useful information for parents/carers.

Phonics-Screening-Check