Phonics in EYFS

What phonics scheme do Nursery class follow?
In our nursery class, children begin their phonics journey by working through interactive games and activities planned to develop their speaking and listening skills using Phase One Letters and Sounds. This lays the foundations for the phonic work which begins when learning RWI.  The emphasis during your child’s time in nursery is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. We focus on: General sound discrimination, environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting. After covering all these areas, some children will begin learning the RWI Set 1 sounds prior to starting Reception.

What phonics scheme do Reception class follow?
We follow the Read Write Inc. (RWI) scheme for phonics lessons in Reception and KS1. In time RWI phonics teaches children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step.

How does RWI work?
The children are assessed and grouped according to their ability.  They work in small groups with a teacher or teaching assistant to learn the sounds that they need to know.  At the end of each half term, the children will be assessed again to check they have made progress and will be grouped again.

Reading:
Through RWI, the children will learn to read effortlessly so that they can put all of their energy into understanding what they are reading.  The children will learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts.  The children learn to read real and ‘nonsense’ words by blending sounds together.  These sounds can be stretchy sounds or bouncy sounds.

Blending:
Children learn to read words by blending the letter/sounds that are in the Speed Sound sets.  You can help your child to read words by sound-blending (Fred Talk as we call it in phonics)

e.g. c-a-t = cat.  In RWI we use pure sounds.  This means removing the ‘uh’ from the sounds.

Watch the Youtube videos for help with pronunciation and practising set one sounds at home.

Check out our phonics resources below. 

Files to Download