What is Read Write Inc. 

Read Write Inc. Phonics teaches children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step. At Knowle all of the children are assessed and grouped accordingly and they work in small groups either with a teacher or a teaching assistant. 

Phoneme 

When teaching your child to read, we never use letter names at this early stage. Your child will learn a new sound every day accompanied by a handwriting rhyme which helps them to remember how to form the letter shape when writing it.  If your child is in Nursery, they may learn a sound a week or over several days as it is important that your child learns how to distinguish sounds. A phoneme is the sound a letter or group of letters make.  Your child will learn to read these sounds quickly and effortlessly using the term speed sounds. 

The video below will help your child with the correct pronunciation of the sounds. 

Blending

Alongside teaching children sounds, we teach them to blend sounds to read words e.g. s-a-t, sat.

We use Fred Talk to help children read.

Fred can only speak in sounds. He says d-o-g, h-a-t etc.

Speaking like Fred helps children to understand that words are made up of sounds.

Fred helps children practise blending sounds together because he needs the children to say the words for him. Fred says d-o-g, children tell him the word is dog.

Green words 

Once your child is able to blend they will begin to use their blending skills to read green words. Green words are words that can be sounded out and blended together e.g. 'dog' and 'top'. 

Sound buttons and dashes 

Sound buttons are the circles and dashes that can sometimes be seen under the words to support the reading. Your child will be taught to say the sounds aloud as they press the sound buttons. The dashes indicate more than one letter making one sound. These are diagraphs such as 'sh' and trigraphs such as 'are' and 'igh'. Diagraphs and trigraphs are known in phonics as special friends.

Red words 

Red words are tricky words. Unlike the green words they can not be sounded out phonetically. Your child will learn to read the red words by sight. 

Sound Sets 

Useful Links 

Phonic Games Online