Mereside Academy

Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read and write.
Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words.
Some are represented by one letter, like ‘t’, and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck and ‘air’ in chair.
Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.
Synthetic phonics refers to ‘synthesising’, or blending, the sounds to read words. It is based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context.

At Mereside C of E Primary Academy, we use Read Write Inc phonics.

Read Write Inc. Phonics is a DfE-validated systematic synthetic phonics programme with a whole- school approach to teaching early reading and writing, designed to ensure progress for every child, in every primary school.  It has proven success in all types of schools, including those with high numbers of children with SEND and those in the least privileged areas.

Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

The aim of Read Write Inc. Phonics is for children to learn to read early.
They learn how to form letters using mnemonics to help them. They learn to spell correctly using their Fred fingers. And they learn to compose their own writing - drawing upon ideas from the story they’ve just read.
Everything knits together: The phonics supports the reading and writing; The reading supports the writing, the writing supports the reading. That’s why Ruth Miskin called it Read Write Inc.