At Newham Bridge Primary School, we aim for all of our children to become fluent, confident readers and we want our children to be passionate about reading. There are so many benefits from learning how to read. And for our youngest readers the impact is massive…
“There can be few things as powerful as regularly reading to a young child. It has astonishing benefits for children: comfort and reassurance, confidence and security, relaxation, happiness and fun. Giving a child time and full attention when reading them a story tells them they matter. It builds self-esteem, vocabulary, feeds imagination and even improves their sleeping patterns.” National Literacy Trust 2026
Since September, our Nursery children have been; learning nursery rhymes, playing sound games, developing their phonological awareness, orally blending, listening for alliteration, playing body percussion and lots more. These are all the pre-reading skills your child needs to develop before they learn to read. So now, our children preparing for Reception, will be moving onto our school phonics programme, Read Write Inc.
RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
What is Read Write Inc. Phonics?
How does phonics help your child learn to read?
In the Summer Term, the Nursery children moving into Reception, will be introduced to Set 1 sounds and will use the phonic flashcards.
During phonics teaching, children hear the sound, see pictures of objects that start with that sound, hear a phrase to assist the children to help remember the sound, see the grapheme, and then write the grapheme. (Keep doing lots of work on building finger/hand strength for this!) Children review previously taught speed sounds on a daily basis and continue to have regular opportunities for Fred talk. This is a very exciting time, as we are starting our journey to learn to read – thank you for supporting us at home too!
How can you help at home?
- Keep sharing lots of stories!
- Keep singing nursery rhymes or reading rhyming stories.
- Keep playing sound games, like I Spy…
- Click on the link for some more information… Parent guide to Read Write Inc. Phonics – Oxford Owl
- Practise saying the pure sounds so you can support your child’s learning in school… See the sound mat below
Use the set 1 sound rhymes to help your child form the letters correctly. They are taught in the following order. We do not use letter names at this stage, just the phoneme/letter sound.
