Nursery

At St Joseph's Catholic Primary School each child's reading journey begins in Nursery where staff will begin to work on speaking and listening skills to develop auditory discrimination and an awareness of letters and sounds. 

Reception & Key Stage One

As the children move into Reception they are taught to read through our chosen phonics programme Read Write Inc (RWI).

The children will engage in daily RWI lessons which will teach the children to read by:

• Reading letters by their sounds.

• Blending these sounds into words.

• Reading the words in a simple story.

Children are assessed every half term and streamed into smaller groups.  Grouping children according to their reading ability allows us to teach them more effectively.  We are also able to target children for interventions to 'keep up' with their peers.

RWI lessons continue to be taught throughout Key Stage One.  Our aim is that most children will be off the programme by the end of Year 2.

Supporting reading at home

• Read together - Choose great stories to read aloud to your child.
• Listen to your child read their reading book.
• Learn to say 'pure sounds'.
• Play 'Fred Talk' games to support early reading.
• Come along to our reading meetings and cafes in school.

Fred Frog

This is Fred the Frog. When children are first learning to read they need to hear the sounds in words and blend them together. This is called oral blending. Fred helps them to do this as he only talks in sounds. You will soon hear lots about Fred Talk and Fred Fingers which help children to spell. There are games you can do at home to help us in school.