At Sythwood, we teach phonics using Read, Write, Inc. This is a scheme which allows children to practise their speed sounds, oral blending, spelling and handwriting all within the phonics lesson. Parents can support their children at home by watching some of the phonics videos and practising the sounds. It is important that children say the pure sounds (not puh, tuh, buh) to allow them to learn to read speedily and fluently.

When using RWI to read the children will:

• learn sounds and the corresponding letter/letter groups using simple picture prompts
• learn to read words using Fred Talk
• read lively stories featuring words they have learned to sound out
• show that they comprehend the stories by answering questions

When using RWI to write the children will:

• learn to write the letters/letter groups which represent sounds
• learn to write words by saying the sounds in Fred Talk
• write simple sentences

Please watch the videos below. Each video has a voiceover to explain each section in more detail. These videos will provide extra information about RWI and how to support your child at home.

You can also click here for FAQ's about RWI. 

Read Write Inc

Listening To Your Child Read

Fred Talk

Storytimes

RWI was founded by Ruth Miskin. Click the image below to visit the Ruth Miskin website. 

Extra Information

At school we use a puppet 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.

Click here and watch a short video to hear how to pronounce the sounds corrrectly. 

In RWI, the children learn each sound with a corresponding rhyme. The sounds are taught in order of Set 1, Set 2 and Set 3.

These are the sounds that are taught in set 1:

These are the sounds that are taught in set 2:

These are the sounds that are taught in set 3:

Click the image below to see a full list of each RWI rhyme that goes with each sound.

Nonsense words (Alien words)          

As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunity to apply their sound recognition skills by reading words that are not real, purely using phonics. There is a statutory assessment at the end of Year 1 called 'The Phonics Screening Check'. The children read 40 words, some are 'alien' and the rest are real. This is a way of checking their decoding, blending and application of sounds learnt. 

Please click below for the information about Phonics at Sythwood. This is a copy of the slides that were delivered during the Phonics talk on 1.10.24.