At Sundon Lower School, we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to teach our children to read, spell and write.

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 begin to expose children in Nursery to skills that will help them access the taught programme in Reception. We continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7, as we use a stage not age approach. 

How will RWI be taught?

All children are assessed regularly by our RWI lead teacher so they work with children at the same level. This allows complete participation in lessons.

Nursery
Children will be introduced to the initial sounds in short sessions.

Reception
In Reception all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. Those who are ready will begin to read and write simple words within books.

Reading

The children:

• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts – see below
• Learn to read words using Fred talk and sound blending
• Read from a range of storybooks and non-fictions books matched to their phonic knowledge
• Work well with partners
• Develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions

Writing

The children:

• Learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases
• Learn to write words by using Fred Talk
• Learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write 

Talking

The children

• They work in pairs so that they:
• Answer every question
• Practise every activity with their partner
• Take turns in talking and reading to each other
• Develop ambitious vocabulary

Year 1 and above

Children follow the same format as Reception but will work on complex sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level.

Five key principles underpin the teaching in all Read Write Inc. sessions: 

Purpose – know the purpose of every activity and share it with the children, so they know the one thing they should be thinking about

Participation – ensure every child participates throughout the lesson. Partnership work is fundamental to learning

Praise – ensure children are praised for effort and learning, not ability

Pace – teach at an effective pace and devote every moment to teaching and learning

Passion – be passionate about teaching so children can be engaged emotionally.

Children will be taught how to read as follows:

Before you start to teach your child, practise 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.

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.

Please do not use letter names at this early stage.

Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.

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) 

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 are made up of the sounds the children are learning e.g. d-u-t (dut), d-oi-n (doin), h-e-sh (hesh).

 
Step 3:

Children will be introduced to ‘Ditty books’ when they successfully begin to read single words. The short vowels should be kept short and sharp:

Children use sound-blending (Fred Talk) to read short ditties. They will bring these home once they have read and discussed the book in class. Children will then be challenged to use their developing phonic knowledge to write short sentences.

Within all the books children will have 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.

Spelling

Spelling will only start in Reception when children are ready to write and form their letters.  Children will use first use ‘Fred fingers’ to first sound out a word before they write it down.  Children learn how to spell rather than just get tested. Furthermore, this way of teaching spellings allows children to use Fred fingers whenever they get stuck with spelling a word. Children pinch each sound on fingers before writing the word.

Order of Story books: Children will hopefully follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One as confident speedy readers, ready to take on the challenges of Year Two. However, some children may need extra support and your teacher will talk to you about this.

To help at home:

Your child will start to bring books home when they are confident readers. Please help them to read and give lots of praise! Remember you can share the enjoyment of reading with your child using a variety of picture and story books at home.

 

Please click here for the Oxford Owl Parent guide to Read Write Inc. Phonics