Phonics | Read Write Inc
What is Phonics?
All words are made up of individual sounds. These sounds are blended together to form words. E.g. in ‘mat’ we have the sounds ‘m’, ‘a’, ‘t’, and in ‘ship’, we have the sounds ‘sh’, ‘i’, ‘p’. Using phonics, children learn to read by saying each sound and blending them to read a word.
A grapheme is another name for the letters we use to write the sound. It’s spelling of a sound on the page. Children learn to spell by segmenting a word into sounds and writing the matching graphemes.
This gives your children the tools to read any word, for example demonstrate, containing, roamed, trivial, injured, whimper.
Ruth Miskin Website - Understanding Phonics
English Alphabetic code
We use 44 sounds to make all the words in the English language. This means we’ve got a problem. We’ve got 44 sounds and only 26 letters. The 26 letters work singly, in pairs and sometimes in threes to represent one sound. We have to group letters together to write some sounds e.g. ‘igh’, ‘air’.
In English we have more than 150 ways to represent 44 sounds, using the 26 letters in the alphabet. This makes our language one of the most complex in the world!
Read Write Inc
What RWI does is simple - we teach children to read and write sounds, children practise reading and spelling words containing these sounds, then we give children decodable books containing sounds and words they can read.
They read each Storybook three times at school and again with you at home. On each reading, children’s fluency increases and the more they can focus on what the story is about. Children also learn to spell the words they have been reading and develop their ideas into sentences so that they can write about the Storybooks they read.
Alongside this, we read stories to children, such as our ‘Share and Enjoy’ books, that they cannot yet read for themselves.
Speed Sounds Set 1 and 2
RWI makes learning to read easy for children because we start by teaching them just one way of reading and writing every sound. Here they are on the Simple Speed Sounds chart.
We teach Set 1 Sounds first (m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, u, b, f, e, l, h, r, j, v, w, z, x, qu, sh, ch, th, ng, nk). Then, we teach Set 2 Sounds – one way to read and write each of the long vowel sounds (ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo, ar, or, air, ir, ou, oy).
Speed Sound Set 3
Once children know how to read Set 2 sounds, they start to learn Set 3 sounds. These are different ways to read and spell Set 2 sounds. We call these Set 3 sounds, but actually they are the same sounds as in Set 2 but with a different spelling. We say "same sound, different spelling". For example, they know ‘ay’ and now learn ‘a-e’ and ‘ai’ as other spellings for the same sound. Once they know all of these sounds, they will be able to read any unfamiliar word.
Sounds + Blending = Word Reading
Alongside teaching children sounds, we teach them to blend sounds to read words e.g. ‘s-a-t, sat’. Once children can read sounds speedily, like this, and understand Fred talking (‘m-a-t...mat’), they can decode words.
Fred Talk
Let me introduce you to Fred the Frog. Fred helps children learn to blend sounds into a word. Fred can only speak in sounds, for example, he says ‘d-o-g’, ‘h-a-t’, etc. He says the sounds ‘c-a-t’, and then children help him to say the word. This is how we quickly teach all of our children to blend orally. We practise blending orally so children will find word-reading easier.
Teaching Spelling using Fred Fingers
We use Fred Fingers to help children sound out words to spell easily. It means they do not have to memorise lists of spelling words. It is a tool so they will be able to spell any word.
Special Friends and Fred Talk
Children will be able to read all of the words in the Storybook. If they hesitate, remind them to read the word using ‘Special Friends, Fred Talk,’. For example, this means they spot the ‘sh’, then Fred Talk and blend to read the word e.g. sh, sh-i-p, ship.
Red Words
Some words are ‘tricky’ because they contain letters that don’t match the sounds the child has been taught. For example, ‘said’ has ‘ai’ making an ‘e’ sound. We teach these common exception words as Red words. In the early storybooks, these words are printed in red text. Remind your child not to use Fred Talk to read Red words but instead to stop and think if they know the word. Tell them the word if needed.
Fred in your Head
Your child's teacher will hold up a Green Word, giving your child time to mime the sounds, and will then push the word forward as a signal for your child to say the whole word (as opposed to blending individual sounds). This will be repeated over a period of time, until your child can say the word with immediacy. Your child will start off initially by mouthing the sounds silently and then saying the whole word and then saying the whole word straight away.
Ruth Miskin Website - How to say the sounds