Sandy Chambers

RWI Phonics Speedy Green Words

From Term 2 we will be sending home an extra list of reading words to practise. These words are called Speedy Green Words. Speedy Green Words are high frequency words found in lots of stories. They are decodable (they can all be Fred Talked), have been taught in our RWI lessons by sound blending and have been read lots of times by the students in past RWI lessons and in RWI books. Instantly recalling Speedy Green words is a very important part of learning to read. It will help build your child’s reading fluency allowing more effort to go into comprehending the story.

The aim in sending these words home is for your child to read these Speedy Green words quickly without sounding them out loud. Ideally words should be read at a pace of one second per word. This will take some practice.

Practise Ideas

• Test your child’s ability to read each word on the list quickly. Tick off the words that they can read speedily.
• Write out unknown or slowly read words and put them on the fridge, on a door, a wall or on flash cards. Your child could read each word every time they open the fridge etc.
• Ask your child to move from reading them out loud (Fred talk) to reading them in their head (Fred in Your Head) building speed as they go.
• Practise every day.
• Play games such as snap with the words.
• Write unknown words out in the sand pit or with chalk on the concrete before they read them.
• Keep sessions short and fun.