Read Write Inc Phonics

At Bentley West, we use the Read Write Inc phonics programme from EYFS - Year 2. It consists of over 50 sounds that have been broken into 3 sets. Set 1 - Single letter sounds (with a few 2 letter sounds) Set 2 - 2 and 3 letter sounds. Set 3 - 2 and 3 letter sounds, as well as spilt sounds.

RWI is a systematic approach that we use to teach our children to read. It begins with teaching the children the individual sounds (phonemes). We then move onto teaching them what letter(s) are needed to write each sound (grapheme).

Once the children have mastered the art of reading the sounds, we then move onto putting them into green words. Green words are those that are decodable and can be read by sounding out each of the sounds within the word. Your child will also be taught that those sounds can be put into a nonsense word, which is a word that is decodable but it does not make sense. They are sometimes referred to as alien words.

Once the children are confident with the single letter sounds, we then move onto teaching the 2 letter sounds. We refer to these as special friends. Your child is taught that when reading they need to be on the lookout for those special friends.

To support the children's reading, once they have learnt a sound they then get introduced to a story book (both fiction and non-fiction),which includes the news sound(s) that they have been taught. They also complete a range of comprehension and writing activities, to apply their knowledge and understanding of both the sounds and story that they have read.

For more information about the RWI programme, click here