Phonics

Phonics Intent 

To create an inclusive, inspiring and challenging curriculum, which develops children’s knowledge of phonics, enabling them to become successful readers who develop a life-long love of reading. 

In our school, phonics is taught across EYFS and KS1. We do this using the RWI programme of study. This is a scheme which provides a structured and systematic approach to teaching Phonics. It is designed to create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers. We teach in this way because research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way, starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the most complex, it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. According to the DfE (Department for Education), ‘almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics, will learn the skills they need to tackle new words’. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment.

 In our school we realise the importance of phonics as it provides children with the building blocks needed to become successful readers. The children are taught how to recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes, identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make – such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’ and then blend these sounds together, from left to right, to make a word. Children can then use this knowledge to decode new words they hear or see.

Implementation 

A quote from English writer Jeanette Winterson sums up our approach to reading perfectly:

'Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and you will change everything. And I mean everything.'

We place significant emphasis upon the development of basic skills and we aim for every child to be reading fluently and with high levels of understanding by the age of 7.  Many of our children achieve this even earlier.

In Reception, the children learn the set 1 and set 2 sounds. Then in Year 1, the children learn the 30 sounds, which enable them to read and write a range of words. Children learn different representations of a sound (‘graphemes’), for example ay, a-e, ai. This enables children to become more confident with not only their reading but also spelling and develops skills which are transferrable to their Literacy. In Year 1, there is a greater emphasis on the reading of the sounds, whereas in year 2 this progresses by using the graphemes more in spelling. 

Across EYFS/KS1, children have daily phonics lessons which they enjoy. Each session is broken up into different parts including the teaching of a new sound, reading words with the new sound, revision of previous sounds taught and also writing words. Phonics is embedded across the curriculum and the children are encouraged to use phonics to support them in a range of topic work. Phonics is displayed in each RWI area across the school. The children are encouraged to use these displays to support their writing in all lessons across the curriculum.

Home reading books are phonics based and we use the RWI book bag books which ensure continuity with our Phonics scheme. These are at the level of each individual child and match the books the children read in our Phonics lessons. Reading books are changed on a weekly basis. The Phonics leader also prepares and distributes additional phonics packs which contain the sounds that are taught on a daily basis. This allows parents to know what their child is learning, as well as secure the learning from school. Half Termly packs of 5-6 books are changed every half term linked to the reading leader assessments. The Book band books have been match to the Read Write Inc programme. 

At Penny Bridge CE Academy we use the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme to teach phonics.  The programme is divided up into colour stages. These can be seen below: