Read Write Inc guide for parents 

Please click on the link below to find lots of free Read Write Inc. Phonics resources to help your child, including eBooks, practice sheets and parent films. 

RWI Guide and Resources for Parents

How will my child be taught to read?

We begin by teaching phonics to the children in Reception classes. This involves helping them understand how to "read" the sounds in words and how to write them down. Learning phonics is crucial for reading, and it also helps children to become good spellers. We teach the children methods to help them remember these sounds and letters.

Reading

The children:

• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups using simple picture prompts
• 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
• 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 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

Before you start to teach your child, practice 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.

Set 1, 2 and 3
RWI/Sound-Mat.pdf

Set 1 Sounds 
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. We do not use letter names at this stage.

Set 2 Sounds
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 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

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 toy frog 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.

Within all the  RWI sessions/books children will be exposed to 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. Books will go home with children after the third read. Please ensure the RWI book is in your child's bag every day.

Spelling with Fred Fingers

Children are taught to use their fingers to help them write words. The children say the word out loud and break it down into its individual sounds. If a word has 3 sounds children hold up 3 fingers, 4 sounds 4 fingers etc. Children pinch each finger as they say the sounds needed in the word then they write the letters that represent each sound. 

Mrs Barugh - RWI Lead

Here are some documents to help your child with their reading journey at home.