Phonics

Read, Write, Inc in Nursery

The main focus in nursery class is language comprehension. It is vital to embed oral activities during the nursery years.

To support our children in the Nursery we model speaking in whole sentences and do lots of talking throughout the day especially in play. We model how to form sentences and get children to add their ideas and repeat these back!

We use second tier vocabulary with children throughout the day to extend vocabulary for example we might say “Children, this morning Charlie looks sad. In fact, he does not just look sad, he looks upset and tearful”.

We have planned storybooks throughout the year that children grow to love, connecting them to the role play area and other areas of the Nursery environment, encouraging children to ‘jump in’, ‘join in’, use ‘phrases to keep forever’. We start with fairy tales and build up a wider bank of stories from here. These stories are in addition to the wealth of stories, nursery rhymes and songs that are part of the nursery day.

From early on the Nursery children are introduced to a carpet talk partner and are encouraged to turn to their talk partner to share ideas and answers. This leads into what will be expected of them later in (Reception) when they begin more formal Read, Write, Inc sessions.

We introduce the classroom management signals to the children as early as possible. These include 1,2,3 to move around the classroom, get their belongings and take part in challenges!

Phonological Awareness

Before teaching the first 30 sounds explicitly we look at the Read, Write, Inc freeze chart and learn about the pictures and what we can see in them. We emphasize the sound at the start of the picture. For example mmmmmmmm mountain!

Fred Talk

It is vital that schools use lots and lots of oral Fred Talk in Nursery. This is where we say words in sounds and encourage children to work out what is being said. For example ‘Can you touch your l-i-p (lip)’. Fred the frog is the Caterpillar’s best friend! Fred can only talk in sounds and they have to work out the words he is saying.

Teaching the first 30 sounds

We have a copy of the Read, Write, Inc frieze up at children’s eye level and teach children the names of the mnemonics - dinosaur, net, mountain, etc.

We Begin to teach the first 30 sounds as soon as children are able to sit on the carpet.

Children will also practice writing the sounds they learn.

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