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Ready to Read Phonics Plus Phase 4 - Rākau l Tree

Rākau l Tree is the fourth and final phase of learning in the Ready to Read Phonics Plus series.

Central image of tree inside green circle with Ready to Read Phonics Plus tree to the left. Central Text saying Rākau | Tree

Tags

  • AudienceKaiako
  • Curriculum Level1
  • Education SectorPrimary
  • Learning AreaEnglish
  • Resource LanguageEnglish
  • Resource typeCollection/Curriculum Guide

About this resource

This page provides an overview of the Rākau l Tree phase of learning. Rākau l Tree is the fourth and final phase of learning in the Ready to Read Phonics Plus series.

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Ready to Read Phonics Plus – Rākau l Tree Phase

Rākau l Tree is the fourth and final phase of the Ready to Read Phonics Plus series. Students are now confident young readers who can independently employ the foundational reading skills they have learned.

Once students are reading in the Rākau | Tree phase you can start to introduce books from the Ready to Read Colour Wheel series. Ready to Read Colour Wheel books support students to become independent readers who engage with longer and more complex texts. We recommend introducing Ready to Read Colour Wheel books from the blue level upwards, depending on your learners’ needs.

You can search for Ready to Read Colour Wheel books on Tāhūrangi using the Rapua ki NZC | Search bar on the Literacy (inc. Instructional Series) page.

Rākau | Tree texts are designed to support students to practise the following skills that they are now independently using:

  • Decoding (segmenting and blending) with the scope further broadening to include alternative spellings of vowel and consonant sounds.
  • Comprehending complex story lines with a clear plot structure, including a problem and resolution.
  • Expanding vocabulary to include topic and interest words.

The Rākau | Tree scope further broadens to include the study of morphemes which are units of meaning within words (for example prefixes and suffixes).

Watch the following video for an introduction to the Rākau | Tree phase of Ready to Read Phonics Plus.

Rākau | Tree details

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The Rākau | Tree phase overview shows the suggested order of the books, the focus sounds, words to blend, and kupu Māori for each book. 

A preview of the phase overview document for Rākau | Tree

You can download a digital copy of the Rākau | Tree phase overview. Go to the “About this resource section” at the top of the page.

See Materials that come with this resource and choose: 

  • Rākau-Tree-Overview (.pdf)

Rākau | Tree introduces:

  • Contractions (for example use of apostrophe when changing I am to I’m)
  • Multisyllable words
  • Prefixes (for example, re-, un-)
  • Suffixes (for example, -er, -est, -ly)
  • Alternative spellings for sounds (phonemes) already encountered: eigh, kn, gh, oar, ore
A selection of book covers from the Rākau phase including "Tinā at School", "We Belong", and "On the Forest Floor"

Rākau | Tree has six decodable student books.

Ready to Read Phonics Plus books have teaching notes inside the back cover.  These provide ideas about how you can use the books to engage your students with word recognition and ways to build language knowledge. 

You can access the Rākau | Tree books via the carousel at the bottom of this page. The suggested teaching order of the Rākau | Tree books, along with their focus is:

  1. Tinā at school – multisyllable words.
  2. On the Forest Floor – consonant doubling, contractions.
  3. Tumble and Turn - consonant doubling, le.
  4. A Midnight Roam – prefixes mid-, un-.
  5. A Colourful World – suffixes -est.
  6. We Belong – suffixes -ing.

Rākau | Tree books in suggested teaching order

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