Phonics

At Banks Road Primary School, we aim for every child to become a fluent, confident reader who is passionate about reading. We believe that a high quality English curriculum will give our children the best possible chance to become competent communicators and thinkers, who love reading and writing. We advocate that children in EYFS and Year 1 use phonics as the first strategy for decoding unfamiliar words. At Banks Road, we teach phonics using Read Write Inc.

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. At our school, we begin preparing our children for the programme in Nursery and we continue throughout Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, as we use a ‘stage and not age’ approach. First, we teach children one way of reading and spelling the English sounds.

We give children a ‘hook’ to learn the sounds by using pictures in the same shape as the letter.

This means that children learn to read and write the sounds easily.

Children then read books that are carefully matched to the spellings of the sounds they have been taught. When children can read these stories confidently, we teach them more ways to read the same sounds. As they learn more spellings of the sounds, the books they read contain more spellings.

Our children do not read books that include the spellings of the sounds that they do not know. This means they build confidence quickly. However, we do read a range of stories to our children that contain all the spellings in the English language.

What is ‘Fred Talk’?

In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), once your child is ready to start reading words, we introduce our children to a toy frog called ‘Fred’. 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 the children will work out the word. For example, Fred will say the sounds c–a–t, and the children will say the word cat. This is Fred Talk: sounding out the word.

Learning Set 1 Speed Sounds

These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds, all of which are 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’.
Please watch ‘The Ruth Miskin Sound Pronunciation Guide’:

You can also help your child practise the Speed Sounds they have learnt in school with the Speed Sounds practice sheets:

Learning to blend with Set 1 Speed Sounds

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, b-e-s-t best, s-p-l-a-sh splash.

Learning Set 2 Speed Sounds

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 (as in toy)

Check if your child can read these sounds.

If your child is learning the Set 2 Speed Sounds, you could help them to:

Complete the Speed Sound Practice Sheets for the Speed Sounds they have learnt.
Read the book your child brings home from school.

Set 2 Speed Sounds Practice Sheets

Learning Set 3 Speed Sounds

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, you could help them to:

Complete the Speed Sound Practice Sheets for the Speed Sounds they have learnt.
Read the book your child brings home from school.