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Children are taught to read at Whitecraig Primary through the teaching of high-quality Phonics. Our chosen programme is Read, Write. Inc. All teachers and support staff who teach phonics from Primary 1 right through the school use this programme and its strategies to support our children in their journey to becoming fluent readers.
Speed Sound Lessons.
Children begin by learning single letter sounds (such as ‘m’) in Primary 1 – they look at both how to say the sound and how to write it. They move on to more complex sounds and spellings as they progress through the school.
Fred the Frog plays a vital role in our Read Write Inc lessons. Fred is only able to speak in sounds, not whole words. We call this Fred Talk! For example, Fred would say m-a–t and we would say ‘mat’. Children can start blending sounds into words as soon as they know a small group of letters well. We start with blending oral sounds, then progress to reading the letters and blending them together to read the whole word. As soon as our Primary 1 children are confident with the first set of sounds (m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, u, b, f, e, l, h, sh, r, j, v, y, w, th, z, ch, qu, x, ng, nk) they can begin to take reading books home!
Set 2 sounds are made up of two or three letters which represent just one sound (for example ‘igh’ as in high and sigh). Along with the letters that represent a sound , the children see a picture prompt which is linked to the sound and a short phrase to say (eg fly high for the sound ‘igh’). Every single sound we teach has a list of green words linked to it, so children can sound out and blend words containing the sound they have just learnt – for example f-r-igh-t.
Finally, the children learn the Set 3 sounds. Here, the children are taught that there are more ways to spell sounds (for example ee as in tree and ea as in tea)
Nonsense Words
As children build up their ability to read sounds, they become more and more able to apply their decoding skills to any unfamiliar word. Every day, children practice their decoding skills by sounding out the letters in ‘alien words’ (words which are made up). They are unable to rely on existing knowledge of real words, and instead have to use their letter-sound knowledge.
There are lots of websites which have games for your child to play to practice their reading of alien words, and teachers will add information and videos to your Google Classroom page too.
Further Support
Any questions or if you would like some further help on how to better support your child's reading at home please do speak to your child's class teacher or alternatively contact one of our reading leaders; Mrs Woodland and Mrs McHugh.
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