To begin, we learn a sound a day. We use pure sounds so that your child will be able to blend the sounds into words more easily. 

We then use ‘Fred talk’ to sound out words. Fred talk helps children read unfamiliar words by pronouncing each sound in the word one at a time. Children can start blending sounds into words as soon as they know a small group of letters well. At the start we use magnetic boards and magnetic letters to build the words. The first words that we start to blend, are the following: 

Once your child knows all Set 1 sounds by sight uses them to blend to read words, we start teaching Set 2 initially and then Set 3 long vowel sounds.  

We now start to learn that two or three letters together can make one sound. We call them ‘special friends’. 

After learning the Set 2 sounds, your child will have learnt one way in which each long vowel sound is written. When learning their Set 3 speed sounds, they will be taught that there are more ways in which the same sounds are written, e.g. ee as in tree, and ea as in tea.

Reading Set 3 speed sounds will be taught for most of Year 1, and spelling the Set 3 speed sounds during Year 2. When your child learns their Set 3 sounds in school they will learn: 
• The letters that represent a speed sound e.g. 'ea’
• A simple picture prompt linked to the ‘speed sound’ and a short phrase to say e.g. ‘cup of tea’ 

There are 20 Set 3 speed sounds that are made up of two or three letters which represent just one sound, e.g. ea as in tea, ow as in cow, and are as in care. As before, it is important that your child does not pronounce these as 2 or 3 separate sounds.   

When a sound contains two letters that makes just one sound e.g. ‘ea’, we call it a‘digraph’. When a sound contains three letters that make just one sound e.g. ‘ure’, we call it a ‘trigraph’. When a sound has two letters, which work as a pair to make one sound, but are separated with the word e.g. ‘a-e’ (cake), we call it a‘split digraph’.

We learn to distinguish between the sounds that sound the same but have different spellings. E.g., we learn that , and all sound the same and we learn the correct spelling for words like day, rain, cake, play, train, shake. 

• The letter formation chart highlights how to form the letters correctly with your child.                                                                     
• The information booklet explains the RWI phonic and reading programme we use at Camelford School.

	Phonics Home Activities	[pdf 8MB]
	fred talk games	[pdf 122KB]
	Home practice cards	[pdf 2MB]
	RWI Parent information booklet set1	[pdf 570KB]
	Letter-formation-chart	[pdf 320KB]