WHAT WE LEARN & HOW WE LEARN
We have developed a broad a deep curriculum that has developed our Christian vision and pedagogy for this new decade. Our exciting and innovative cross-curricular projects combine the National Curriculum subjects into immersive and engaging learning experiences. The real-world outcomes allow children to take risks, experience challenge, deal with disappointment and failure, success sand triumph and go on Physical, Mental and Emotional journeys which allow academic progress and development of character.
The entire teaching team work together continuously on curriculum design, this ensures we tailor the curriculum to our children and their needs. We divide our curriculum into manageable termly topic webs that are accessible to all staff members and parents on our website.
The core subjects of the National Curriculum are English, Maths and Science and in a church school RE is also a core subject.
In mathematics we are currently following the White Rose Maths progression and using the resources as a starting point for teaching. The teachers use mastery supplementary resources to support and challenge our learners and complete ongoing interventions for children on a daily basis.
As a United Kingdom Church of England school accountable to Herefordshire Local Authority, we follow the National Curriculum (DfE 2013) and the Herefordshire agreed syllabus for RE.
We use Read write Inc as a Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme to ensure consistency in Early Reading. Our reception children learn and are assessed in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage.
Continuous provision is well developed in Early Years and the children have wonderful enrichment opportunities in their classroom environment as well as access to the outdoor decking and muddy area. Our KS1 classroom has also fostered elements of continuous provision and the children have access to enhanced activities in dedicated areas of the classroom.
The entire teaching team work together continuously on curriculum design, this ensures we tailor the curriculum to our children and their needs. To find out more about how we organise the curriculum and follow it in our teaching and learning make an appointment and come and have a chat.
Phonics at Canon Pyon C of E Academy
We use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their Literacy development.
What is Read Write Inc?
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. However, we continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7, as we use a stage not age approach.
RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at https://ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/.
How will my child be taught to read?
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters.
Reading
The children:
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Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below
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Learn to read words using Fred talk and sound blending
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Read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge
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Work well with partners
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Develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions
Writing
The children:
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Learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases
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Learn to write words by using Fred Talk
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Learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write
Talking
The children:
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Work in pairs so that they:
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Answer every question
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Practise every activity with their partner
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Take turns in talking and reading to each other
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Develop ambitious vocabulary
Read Write Inc Progression of skills
Children in Reception are introduced to initial sounds. Children then begin to learn how to 'read' the sound in words and how those sounds be can be written down. As children progress, they follow the same format as Early Years but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level. Daily sessions of RWI phonics last 45 minutes. Once children become fluent speedy readers they will move on to the RWI Spelling programme.
Children will be taught how to read as follows:
Before you start to teach your child, practice saying the sounds below. These are the sounds we use to speak in English. Children initially begin using pictures for each sound, this will help children recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.
Fred Talk
We use pure sounds (‘m’ not’ muh’,’s’ not ‘suh’, etc.) so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily.
At school we use a puppet called Fred who is an expert on sounding out words! we call it, ‘Fred Talk’. E.g. m-o-p, c-a-t, m-a-n, sh-o-p, b-l-a-ck.
The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q
RWI Set 1, 2 and 3
The children are taught the sounds in 3 sets.
Step 1:
Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
View large version of image
View large version of image
View large version of image
At this stage we do not use the letter names
Use the link below to support your pronunciation sounds correctly.
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/#lg=1&slide=3
Step 2:
The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds.
Set 2 Speed Sounds
Sound
Phrase
Words to practice reading and spelling
ay
ay: may I play
play, day, may, way, say, spray
ee
ee: what can you see
see, three, been, green, seen, sleep
igh
igh: fly high
high, night, light, fright, bright, might
ow
ow: blow the snow
blow, snow, low, show, know, slow
oo
oo: poo at the zoo
too, zoo, food, pool, moon, spoon
oo
oo: look at a book
took, look, book, shook, cook, foot
ar
ar: start the car
car, start, part, star, hard, sharp
or
or: shut the door
sort, short, horse, sport, fork, snort
air
air: that’s not fair
fair, stair, hair, air, chair, lair
ir
ir: whirl and twirl
girl, bird, third, whirl, twirl, dirt
ou
ou: shout it out
out, shout, loud, mouth, round, found
oy
oy: toy for a boy
toy, boy, enjoy
Set 3 Speed Sounds
Sound
Phrase
Words to practice reading and spelling
ea
Cup of tea
clean, dream, seat, scream, real
oi
Spoil the boy
join, voice, coin
a-e
Make a cake
make, cake, name, same, late, date
i-e
Nice smile
smile, white, nice, like, time, hide
o-e
Phone home
home, hope, spoke, note, broke, phone
u-e
Huge brute
tune, rude, huge, brute, use, June
aw
Yawn at dawn
saw, las, dawn, crawl, paw, yawn
are
Care and share
share, dare, scare, square, bare
ur
Nurse with a purse
burn, turn, spurt, nurse, purse, hurt
er
A better letter
never, better, weather, after, proper, corner
ow
Brown cow
how, down, brown, cow, town, now
ai
Snail in the rain
snail, paid, tail, train, paint, rain
oa
Goat in a boat
goat, boat, road, throat, toast, coat
ew
Chew the stew
chew, new, blew, flew, drew, grew
ire
Fire! Fire!
Fire, hire, wire, bon/fire, in/spire, con/spire
ear
Hear with your ear
hear, dear, fear, near, year, ear
ure
Sure it’s pure
pure, sure, cure, pic/ture, mix/ture, ad/ven/ture
Nonsense words (Alien words)- What 'a load' or nonsense!
As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the summer term. These words provide endless opportunities for children to apply and practice their thinking in a range of different contexts.
How to say the sounds
Step 3:
Within all the RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable and challenge words to extend children’s vocabulary. Green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.
Dots and dashes represent the sound each letter makes.
During the RWI session children will read the book three times and at each new reading they will have plenty of opportunities to practise using their developing comprehension skills. You may have heard your child talking about ‘hold, edit or build a sentence’.
Hold a sentence is an activity that encourages children to remember a whole sentence while focusing on spelling and punctuation.
Build a sentence is to give children the opportunity to create their own sentence to that shows the meaning of a word and edit a sentence allows the children to critique a sentence using their knowledge of spelling punctuation and grammar. Children complete a longer piece of independent writing, which gives them the opportunity to show off their creativity and to practice their spelling, grammar and punctuation.
To help at home:
Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers, relating to their reading stage. You will find they will bring home a phonics based book, this will aid application, speed and fluency - developing speedy reading! Following on from this, they will bring a comprehension based book which will begin to enrich their reading, which will require decoding skills. Only then, children will bring home enriched reading books which will enhance their understanding via inspirational language promoting depth to their understanding.
Parent video: Sound blending
Parent video: Reading the digraphs with your child
Parent video: Reading the bouncy sounds with your child
Read Write Inc guide for parents
The following links provides lots of free Read Write Inc. Phonics resources to help your child, including eBooks, practice sheets and parent films.
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
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