🔤 Phonics at Cottesbrooke

Phonics is the foundation of early reading and writing. At Cottesbrooke Infant & Nursery School, we follow the Read Write Inc. (RWI) phonics programme developed by Ruth Miskin.

It’s a whole-school approach that helps children become fluent readers, confident speakers, and willing writers — all through carefully sequenced, daily teaching.

🎥 Want to See How It Works?

We recommend starting with this short video:
👉 What is Read Write Inc. Phonics?
It explains the approach and shows you how you can support your child at home.

🧠 What Your Child Will Learn

✅ Set 1 Speed Sounds

These are single-letter sounds (e.g. m, a, s) and two-letter “special friends” (e.g. sh, th, ng) that children learn to recognise and say correctly.

These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds written with one letter:

m  a  s  d  t  i  n  p  g  o  c  k  u  b  f  e  l  h  r  j  v  y  w  z  x

These are the sounds written with two letters (your child will call these ‘special friends’):

sh  th  ch  qu  ng  nk  ck

We teach children to say the pure sounds (e.g. “mmm” not "muh or the letter name “em”) to support blending.
👉 Watch our Sound Pronunciation Guide to help with this at home.

🔗 Blending Words with Set 1 Sounds

Once your child knows some sounds, they’ll begin to blend them into words using Fred Talk. For example:

• m-a-t → mat
• c-a-t → cat
• g-o-t → got
• f-i-sh → fish
• s-p-o-t → spot
• b-e-s-t → best
• s-p-l-a-sh → splash        

✅ Set 2 and Set 3 Speed Sounds

As they progress, children learn more complex sounds and spelling patterns:

Set 2:
ay, ee, igh, ow (blow), oo (zoo), oo (look), ar, or, air, ir, ou (out), oy

Set 3:

We help children practise reading these sounds in real words and sentences to build fluency. Check to see if your child can read these sounds.

🐸 What is Fred Talk?

Fred is our helpful reading frog! He can only say sounds, not whole words — so your child has to help him by blending the sounds into words.

• Fred says: c–a–t

• Your child says: cat

This blending is the core of early reading and is practised every day.

⚡ Speedy Reading

As part of our half-termly assessments, children practise Speedy Reading — recognising words quickly without sounding out. This helps build reading fluency.

To support this at home, we’ve created PowerPoints of common words children are learning to read “at speed.”
👇 You can veiw them below and practise together.

🔗 Helpful Links and Downloads

• Sound Pronunciation Guide

• Oxford Owl - Read Write Inc. Phonics Information for parents

• More information about Read Write Inc.

Reception Reading Meeting

Thank you to all those parents who were able to attend the Reading Meeting. If you were unable to attend I have attached the slides used below for your reference.