This highly structured and systematic approach to phonics is proven to support children in learning to read fluently and accurately from an early age. Read Write Inc. provides children with the tools to confidently decode words, develop fluency, and build a strong foundation for lifelong literacy. Alongside our teaching in school, home reading plays a vital role in reinforcing these skills and building children’s confidence. Regular reading at home helps children apply what they’ve learned in class, while also nurturing a genuine lifelong love of books and storytelling. By working together—school and families—we can inspire a passion for reading that opens doors to learning, imagination, and future success.

Over the last half term, we have enjoyed taking part in our new phonics groups. A huge part of our new phonics lessons is Fred! He is our phonics frog who can only say words in their sounds (we need to help Fred to blend the sounds together to make a word!).

As part of our lessons, we have been ‘Fred talking’ (sounding out words), using ‘Fred in your head’ (reading words without having to sound them out), ‘Fred fingers’ (counting the sounds on your fingers to help you to write them) and ‘speedy reading’ (reading words fast to develop fluency).

Take a look at some of us in action!

Here are some of our children using magnetic letters to form the words. Children first use Fred Fingers to count the sounds before finding the initial sound, then middle and last sound of the word. They then ‘Fred talk’ and ‘read the word’ the word to check it is correct.

Handwriting forms part of our daily phonics lessons. Children learn to form the letters using a mnemonic (to form ‘a’ we say “round the apple, down the leaf”).

We put our practise into action and independently write words which contain the sound we have learnt. Here, children have used sound buttons on ‘special friends’ (digraphs and trigraphs) and ‘chatty friends’ (split digraphs).

Here are our Set 2 group using ‘Fred Fingers’.

We look forward to sharing our continued journey with 'Read Write Inc' via our Parent Workshops, School Newsletter and information on the curriculum pages of our school website.

For now, why not ask your child what they have been learning about in Phonics? Better still, take 5 minutes to enjoy a book together and see how impressive their reading is for yourself!