Belton All Saints Church of England Primary School

Phonics at Belton All Saints Church of England Primary School

• It is very important that we teach phonics early, clearly and systematically to enable children to learn to read and spell.
• The English written language is basically a kind of code.
• Teaching phonics is just teaching children to crack that code.
• Chldren learn the simple bits first and then progress to get the hang of the trickier bits.

At Belton All Saints Primary School, we use a systematic approach to the teaching of phonics using the Letters and Sounds Handbook as a guide.

Phonics in Nursery (Early Years Foundation Stage 1)

This begins as soon as children enter our school in Nursery (Foundation Stage 1 / FS1) with Phase 1. Children are taught to isolate the sounds they hear around them including body percussion and environmental sounds, orally recognise rhyming strings and hear initial sounds in word then begin to orally segment and blend simple words          c-a-t    sh-ee-p   d-u-ck. This is taught in a fun, engaging way with lots of rhymes, songs and active games.

Phonics in Reception (Early Years Foundation Stage 2)

When children move into Reception (Foundation Stage 2 / FS2) they consolidate their learning and are introduced to Phase 2 when they learn the sounds that letters make. There are 44 sounds to learn! They are also introduced to some tricky words that can’t be segmented and blended. Children are taught to make the links between the sounds they hear and the graphemes (letters) they read and write. Children have lots of opportunities to practice these skills.

By the end of the Autumn Term in FS2 children are beginning Phase 3. During Phase 3 children learn a further 25 new graphemes including consonant digraphs – sh  ch   th ng – and vowel digraphs – ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er. They have daily practice using them to read and write simple words. They are taught 24 more tricky words. 

Towards the end of FS2 children begin Phase 4. hey will be able to blend phonemes to read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and segment in order to spell them. At this phase children are not taught any new phonemes or graphemes. Instead, they are taught to further manipulate the phonemes and graphemes they have already learnt. Many of the words children explored in Phase 2 and 3 were monosyllabic (words of one syllable). In Phase 4 children explore more polysyllabic words (words containing more than one syllable). Phase 4 requires children to blend an increasing number of sounds together in order to read. Teaching and learning provides lots of opportunities to apply the skills taught when reading and writing.

Phonics in Key Stage 1 (Year 1 & 2)

Throughout Year 1 children will master Phase 5.  ‘Here, we start introducing alternative spellings for sounds, like 'igh'. Children master these in reading first, and as their fluency develops, they begin to use them correctly in spelling.

Children learn new graphemes (different ways of spelling each sound) and alternative pronunciations for these: for example, learning that the grapheme ‘ow’ makes a different sound in ‘snow’ and ‘cow’. 

They should become quicker at blending.

They learn about split digraphs such as the a-e in ‘name.’

They’ll start to choose the right graphemes when spelling, and will learn more tricky words, including ‘people,’ ‘water’ and ‘friend’.

By the end of Year 1, children should be able to:

·         Say the sound for any grapheme they are shown

·         Write the common graphemes for any given sound (e.g. ‘e,’ ‘ee,’ ‘ie,’ ‘ea’)

·         Use their phonics knowledge to read and spell unfamiliar words of up to three syllables

·         Read all of the 100 high frequency words, and be able to spell most of them

·         Form letters correctly

At the end of Year 1, all children are given a Phonics Screening Check to ensure they have mastered the appropriate knowledge.

Children move into the final Phase 6 in Year 2, with the aim that they become fluent readers and accurate spellers.

By Phase 6, children should be able to read hundreds of words using one of three strategies:

·         Reading them automatically

·         Decoding them quickly and silently

·         Decoding them aloud

Although formal phonics teaching is usually complete by the end of Year 2, children continue to use their knowledge as they move up the school. ‘The whole aim of phonics teaching is not just to learn the sounds, but to use them as a tool for reading and spelling.

 Everything leads on to independent, fluent reading and writing.

Children are initially taught reading skills through a daily programme of phonics, work to memorise key words and reading a range of high quality books to develop an interest in stories and non-fiction texts. During Foundation Stage 1, Foundation Stage 2 and Keystage 1, decodable books are used. This means that children will read books that are appropriate to the knowledge and understanding that they have of phonics, making sure that they have been taught relevant phonics that they come across in the book.

These decodable books are available through to phase 6 of the phonics programme. Following this children can then move onto 'Free Readers'. This usually happens during year 2.  In addition to this all children have regular access to the school’s well stocked library where they can access a large range of books.

As well as good decoding skills, good readers need to be able to ask questions to check their own understanding. From Reception (Foundation Stage 2) onwards, children are taught individually, in small groups (guided reading) and as a whole class to develop these comprehensions skills. 

Children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 take part in daily reading lessons (whole class reading) where they are taught comprehension skills using the VIPERS approach. A range of texts are used for whole class reading sessions, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and the class novel. Below the table outlines the VIPERS appraoch:

From Reception (Foundation Stage 2) up to Year 6 the children take part in a variety of reading activities including whole class reading, guided reading, individual reading and sharing class novels. Throughout the year a variety of reading challenges are set using both paper and digital books eg Read for my School, Summer challenge through North Lincolnshire Libraries.