Early Reading and Phonics

Read Write Inc. is a the phonics scheme we follow at Lingfield Primary School. Like all phonics schemes, it teaches children the sounds in English, the letters that represent them, and how to form the letters when writing. Read Write Inc. Phonics includes reading books written using only the letters they have learnt at each level (and a small number of separately taught tricky words). The children will quickly feel confident and successful.

  
Speed sounds and Read Write Inc. Stages

In Nursery and Reception, your child will learn to read the Set 1 sounds by sight. They will also learn how to blend them together to read words e.g. c-a-t = cat. In Year 1 and Year 2, they will then move onto learning to Set 2 and Set 3 sounds. 

Before your child can start to read, they need to learn to: 

Say the sound that is represented by each letter or groups of letters. These are called ‘speed sounds’. 
Know how to blend the sounds together in a word to read it e.g. c-a-t = cat. This is called ‘sound- blending’. 


At school, if your child is learning to read, they will be at one of the following stages:

These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds written with one letter:

m  a  s  d  t  i  n  p  g  o  c  k  u  b  f  e  l  h  r  j  v  y  w  z  x


These are the sounds written with two letters (your child will call these ‘special friends’):

sh  th  ch  qu  ng  nk  ck


Check if your child can read these sounds. Make sure they say sounds like ‘mmm’, not letter names like ‘em’. Watch the Sound Pronunciation Guide video to help you. It is really important to say the sounds clearly to help your child learn them. We say ‘mmmm’ not ‘muh’ and ‘lllll’ not ‘luh’ when teaching the sounds. This really helps children when they learn to blend sounds together to read words.

Your child is learning to read words containing Set 1 Speed Sounds by sound blending. For example:

m-a-t mat

c-a-t cat

g-o-t got

f-i-sh fish
s-p-o-t spot

b-e-s-t best

s-p-l-a-sh splash.

You could watch the Sound Blending video to help you support your child with sound blending.


These are the Set 2 Speed Sounds:

ay  ee  igh  ow (as in blow)  oo (as in zoo)

oo (as in look) ar  or  air  ir  ou (as in out)  oy


Check if your child can read these sounds.

If your child is learning the Set 2 Speed Sounds, help them to:
Reading books at Red Ditty level, then Green level and then Purple level, in order. We recommend children read each book three times, as they would at school: once to read the words correctly, a second time with more fluency, and a third time in a ‘storyteller voice’ that shows their understanding.

These are Set 3 Speed Sounds:

ea (as in tea)

oi (as in spoil)

a–e (as in cake)

i–e (as in smile)

o–e (as in home)

u–e (as in huge) 

aw (as in yawn)

are (as in care)

ur (as in nurse)

er  (as in letter)

ow (as in brown)

ai  (as in snail)

oa (as in goat)

ew (as in chew)

ire (as in fire)

ear (as in hear)

ure (as in pure)


Check if your child can read these sounds.

If your child is learning Set 3 Speed Sounds, help them to:


Read the books at Pink level, then Orange level and then Yellow level, in order. We recommend children read each book three times, as they would at school: once to read the words correctly, a second time with more fluency, and a third time in a ‘storyteller voice’ that shows their understanding.

If your child’s school is using Read Write Inc. Phonics, teachers will introduce your child to a toy frog called Fred once he or she is ready to start reading words.

Fred can only say the sounds in a word and needs your child to help him read the word. Fred will say the sounds and children will work out the word. For example, Fred will say the sounds c–a–t, and children will say the word cat. This is Fred Talk: sounding out the word.

Phoneme: a single unit of sound e.g. c, qu, t 


Grapheme: the unit of letters that make up the phoneme e.g. t, d, qu, 


‘Special friends’ (Digraph): 2 letters that make one phoneme e.g. ch, sh, ay


‘Chatty friends’ (Trigraph): 3 letters that make one phoneme e.g. igh, tch


Blending: when we put the sounds together to make a word e.g. b-a-t→ bat


Segmenting: when we break the word down into sounds e.g. bat→ b-a-t


Fred Fingers: When we listen to a word, we count how many sounds we can hear e.g. Phonics→ Ph-o-n-i-c-s


Dots and dashes- we will put dots and dashes under word to help show where the digraphs may be 


Alien words - made up or nonsense words designed to check children are noticing the digraphs etc

 

Home Reading 

We want children to create a strong orthographic map. This means that they learn sounds spelt by the letters or groups of letters in each word. To read fluently, or well, we need a strong orthographic map. To consistently recognise that the <ea> in bread spells /e/ we need to read it at least 4 times. This means we need to read the word many times to build fluency for reading.

Your child will bring home a phonically decodable book matched to the sounds they have been learning in the classroom. They will also be sent home with their RWInc book they have been reading in class. Share and enjoy these books with your child. There are further activities and questions within the back pages of these books. 

 In particular, we want your child to practise reading one book (either the phonically decodable book) 4 times across the week, working on these skills:

  • decoding - the process of working out how to say (‘‘sounding out’’) a written word.
  • fluency - quickly recognising the sounds within a word to read with appropriate speed and accuracy.
  • expression - reading with feeling and intonation (not sounding like a robot!). An example of this is if your child is reading a question, they need to make their voice sound like they are asking a question.

Useful Resources 

Set 1 sound chart Set 2 Speed Sounds Chart Set 3 Speed Sounds Chart Complex Speed Sounds Chart Fred Talk Games Home practise cards Letter Formation Chart Phonics Home Activities