Supporting Your Child’s Reading at Home: Read Write Inc. and the Pause, Prompt, Praise Approach

Reading regularly with your child is one of the most important ways you can support their learning. Sharing books every day helps children to develop their phonics knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and, most importantly, a love of reading.

At school, we teach early reading through Read Write Inc. (RWI), a systematic phonics programme that helps children learn the sounds they need to read and spell confidently. Children are taught to recognise pure sounds, blend sounds together to read words, and use their growing knowledge of special friends (two or more letters that work together to make one sound), Fred Talk, and red words (words that cannot always be sounded out).

When reading RWI books at home, it is important that children have the opportunity to practise the sounds and strategies they have been learning in school. Each RWI book is carefully matched to your child’s current phonics knowledge, allowing them to experience success, build confidence, and develop fluency.

When your child gets stuck on a word, we encourage families to use the Pause, Prompt, Praise approach.

Pause

Give your child time to think. Encourage them to use their RWI strategies independently before stepping in. They might:

• Say the sounds and blend them together.
• Look for special friends.
• Use their knowledge of Fred Talk.
• Re-read the sentence to check if it makes sense.

Prompt

If your child is still unsure, offer a gentle prompt to help them solve the word rather than telling them straight away. You could ask:

• “Can you spot any special friends?”
• “What sound does this letter make?”
• “Can you Fred Talk the word?”
• “Can you blend the sounds together?”
• “Does that word make sense in the sentence?”

If your child still cannot read the word, tell them the word and allow them to repeat it. The aim is to build confidence and independence, not frustration.

Praise

Celebrate your child’s effort and the strategies they use, not just whether they get every word right. Positive encouragement helps children become resilient and confident readers.

You might say:

• “I love how you used your sounds to work that out.”
• “Great spotting of the special friends.”
• “You kept trying even when it was tricky.”
• “Well done for checking that sentence made sense.”

Reading is also about understanding and enjoying stories. After reading, spend time talking about the book together. Ask questions such as:

• “What happened in the story?”
• “Who was your favourite character and why?”
• “What do you think will happen next?”
• “How do you think the character felt?”
• “Can you find a word in the book that means…?”

Please remember that listening to your child read their RWI book more than once is valuable. Re-reading helps children develop accuracy, expression, and fluency, allowing them to move from carefully sounding out words to reading with confidence.

Thank you for continuing to support reading at home. By working together, we can help children develop the skills, confidence, and enthusiasm they need to become lifelong readers.