Children use their Fred Fingers to identify the individual sounds in words. In the early stages, children are given a simple word and are told how many sounds are in that word. They then hold up that amount of fingers (with the palm of their hand facing them so they can see their fingers). As they say their word, they split their word up into individual sounds, using one finger for each sound in sequence (left to right). For example, in the word bag, children would be told that this word has 3 sounds. They would then hold up three fingers and look at them. The next step is to touch their left-most fingers and say the first sound ( b). They then move to the next finger and say ( a). Finally they touch their next finger and say ( g). As they become more confident at linking letters to sounds and at writing those letters they will become increasingly more and more able to write the words after they use their Fred Fingers. This is the basis of writing using phonics. Speed Sounds cards: for children to practise reading speedily. If needed, show your child the picture side of the card to help them remember the sound. Learning to read is a life-long achievement and the most important thing your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends upon this skill and so at Swanmore we put as much energy into ensuring that every single child not only learns to read but learns to love reading. We have produced a range of videos for you to access at home to help your child practise phonics sounds.

Watch the ‘ Reading the stretchy sounds with your child’, ‘ Reading the bouncy sounds with your child’ and ‘ Reading the digraphs with your child’ parent films on http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/ to see how to teach Set 1 sounds For example ‘ship’: spot the ‘sh’, then Fred Talk and blend to read the word e.g. sh, sh-i-p, ship. We have lots of free Read Write Inc. Phonics resources to help your child, including eBooks, practice sheets and parent films. We suggest you start by watching this film for parents: What is Read Write Inc. Phonics? Speed sounds and Read Write Inc. Stages Say the handwriting phrase to help them form the letter correctly – see Handwriting Phrases on http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/ Loving stories is important because children who love stories want to read stories for themselves. Children who read a lot become better readers.Due to the success of RWI, Ruth Miskin is currently involved in a series of nationwide training programmes for primary schools commissioned by the UK government, aimed at training teachers in effective phonics teaching. - Your child has a Storybook matched to the sounds and words they know – a decodable book – so they should be able to read all the words.

Help your child practise reading known Speed Sounds cards speedily. If needed, show your child the picture side of the card to help them remember the sound. Use every opportunity to talk with your child throughout the day – meal times, playing together, bath time say words by sounding-blending (Fred talk) eg. m-a-t = mat, sh-o-p = shop. Children then learn to read words by saying the sounds in a word then blending them together to say the whole word. Read the story once without stopping so they can enjoy the whole story. If you think your child might not understand something say something like ‘Oh I think what’s happening here is that…”

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Learn to spell words by saying the sounds using Fred Talk. The following link shows how you can help your child to spell when they are writing with you at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=absSgYIPCns Book Bag Books: matched to the Storybooks children read in school and used for extra practice. They include many of the same reading activities that we use in class and include parent guidance. Read Write Inc. uses a systematic approach to Phonics to help children to learn to read and write. Children learn new sounds daily - these are letters and the most common sound that they make. When they have developed their knowledge of several sounds, they then begin to put these sounds together to make words. This is called blending. Blending is a very important milestone in children's reading because once they can hear the sounds in words and blend the sounds together to make words, they are ready to access books and begin to read independently.