RWI sounds progression
Your child is learning to read at school with Read Write Inc. Phonics. It is really important to say the sounds clearly to help your child learn them. We say ‘mmmm’ not ‘muh’ and ‘lllll’ not ‘luh’ when teaching the sounds. This really helps children when they learn to blend sounds together to read words.
There is a link to the Oxford Owl RWI page below which shows videos of how to pronounce the sounds correctly so you can support your child at home.
Your child will be at one of the following stages:
Learning Set 1 Speed Sounds
These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds written with one letter:
Set 1 Speed Sounds, include the most common single-letter sounds of the alphabet (such as m, a, s, d, t). Alongside these single letters, children are also introduced to "special friends."
In phonics, "special friends" is the child-friendly term we use for digraphs—which means two letters that sit together to make just one single sound (such as sh in ship, ch in chat, or th in thin).
Teaching them as "special friends" helps children view them as a team rather than separate letters.
Learning Set 2 Speed Sounds
Once your child is confident with their single-letter sounds, they progress to Set 2 Speed Sounds to unlock the next stage of their reading journey.
At this stage, children learn the twelve most common vowel sounds, which include sounds like ay (as in play), ee (as in see), and igh (as in high).
Almost all of the sounds in Set 2 are "special friends", which is the child-friendly phrase we use for digraphs (two letters that make one sound) or trigraphs (three letters that make one sound).
We teach children that these letters are "special friends" because they stick together as a team to make a brand-new sound, rather than being read as individual letters.
When reading at home, you can support your child by encouraging them to spot the "special friends" in a word first, use "Fred Talk" to sound out the rest of the letters, and then blend them together to read the whole word smoothly!
1. Special friends
2. Fred talk
3. Read the word
Learning Set 3 Speed Sounds
As your child becomes a more fluent reader, they advance to Set 3 Speed Sounds to master complex spelling and reading patterns.
In this final set, children learn alternative ways to spell the sounds they already know from Set 2; for example, having learnt ay (as in play), they now learn that the same sound can be written as ai (as in rain) or a-e (as in make).
Set 3 also introduces "split digraphs"—special friends that are so talkative they have to be separated by another letter, like the i-e in smile.
At home, you can support your child by hunting for these advanced "special friends" in their reading books and using "Fred in your head" to help them read words quickly and silently before saying them aloud.
