At Wildground, our aim is for every child to become a fluent, confident reader who develops a genuine love of reading. Children who read regularly, or are read to often, gain access to new ideas, experiences and worlds. More importantly, strong reading skills equip children to become independent, lifelong learners.

We work in partnership with families to support reading by:

• Teaching reading through the Read Write Inc. (RWI) phonics programme
• Encouraging daily reading at home and at school
• Providing access to a wide and varied range of high-quality books

To support this, we use Read Write Inc. Phonics to give children the strongest possible foundation in early reading and writing. The information below explains how the programme works and how you can help your child at home.

What is Read Write Inc.?

Read Write Inc. is a structured phonics programme designed to help children learn to read accurately, fluently and with confidence. By securing decoding skills early, children can focus on developing comprehension, vocabulary and spelling.

The programme is primarily designed for children aged 4–7, but at Wildground we begin introducing RWI in Nursery and continue teaching it beyond the age of seven where additional support is needed. RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin.

How is RWI taught?

All children are assessed every half term. These assessments allow RWI leaders to track progress and group children according to their phonics knowledge. Groups are reviewed regularly, and any child who is not making expected progress receives additional targeted support.

• Nursery: Children are introduced to early sounds through short, engaging sessions when appropriate.
• Reception: Children learn to read sounds in words and write the corresponding letters and letter groups.
• Year 1 and Year 2: Children follow the same lesson structure while progressing to more complex sounds and texts matched to their reading level. Daily RWI sessions last approximately 35 minutes.

Reading, Writing and Talking in RWI

Reading - Children:

• Learn 44 sounds and their matching letter or letter groups
• Blend sounds using Fred Talk
• Read storybooks and non-fiction texts matched to their phonics stage
• Develop comprehension through structured discussion questions

Writing - Children:

• Learn correct letter formation using memorable phrases
• Write words by segmenting sounds using Fred Talk

Talking - Children work with partners to:

• Answer questions and practise activities
• Take turns speaking and listening
• Develop confident communication and ambitious vocabulary

Key Principles of RWI Teaching

All RWI sessions are underpinned by five key principles:

• Purpose – children understand the focus of each activity
• Participation – every child is actively involved throughout
• Praise – effort and learning are celebrated
• Pace – lessons are lively and purposeful
• Passion – enthusiasm for teaching and learning is central

Learning Sounds and Blending

Children are taught to use pure sounds (for example, ‘m’ not ‘muh’) to make blending easier. At school, we introduce Fred the Frog, a puppet who helps children sound out words using Fred Talk (e.g. c-a-t, sh-o-p).

Sounds are taught in three sets:

• Set 1: Single-letter sounds and some digraphs
• Set 2: Long vowel sounds
• Set 3: Alternative spellings for sounds

Children also practise reading nonsense (alien) words to apply their phonics knowledge independently. These form part of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.

Cued Articulation

Alongside RWI, we use cued articulation, a system of hand cues that supports children in identifying and producing individual sounds. Each cue represents how and where a sound is made, helping children with speech clarity and sound recognition.

Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.

 

 

Children will also use pictures for each sound to help recognise the sound and then form the shape of the sound.

Set 2

The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds - the long vowels. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught Set 3 Sounds.

 

 

 

 

Set 3: Once children can blend sounds into words, they begin reading Ditty Books and then progress through a carefully structured sequence of storybooks. Books include:

• Green words – fully decodable
• Red words – common exception words that must be learned by sight

Children read each book several times to build fluency and comprehension before bringing it home to share.

Order of Story books: 

Children will hopefully follow the order listed below. The expectation is that all children will leave Year One as confident speedy readers, ready to take on the challenges of Year Two.