What is the purpose for teaching Phonics?
The primary approach to teaching pupils to read at Eastfield Primary school is through the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics. This means that phonics is explicit, organised, sequenced and covers all of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences in the English Language. At Eastfield we follow the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’; this is a structured programme which introduces pupils to phonemes and graphemes in a specific order within the context of a language-rich curriculum. By following the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ programme effectively, pupils are able to see the relationship between reading and spelling from an early stage, such that the teaching of one reinforces understanding of the other.
Children are regularly assessed using the Little Wandle assessments and Phonics Screening checks. This allows any children which have fallen off trajectory to receive daily keep-up sessions.
To support the children outside of their phonics lessons, we provide the children with a rich reading environment. It is our belief that children should be engaged in the exploration of exciting and stimulating contexts for reading words with purposes for learning. Within class and around school, the children are surrounded by a love for reading and will regularly be exposed to shared, guided and independent reading. Each of our classes share which book they are reading and have an author of the term which the children are able to explore.
Although by the end of Year 1 the teaching of phonics should be substantially complete, the teaching of word structures and spelling patterns continue to be learnt in Year 2 and this is further secured by the teaching and learning of spelling in Key Stage 2. Children requiring further support in Phonics, in Year 2 and 3, follow the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-Up programme.
All children are screened in Phonics at the end of Year 1, those who do not reach the threshold are provided with intervention and re-take the phonics screening check in Year 2.
How often do we teach phonics?
To ensure that the children have as much exposure to reading as possible, phonics is taught once in the morning and is followed up by Reading Practise Sessions in the afternoon. Children are also frequently exposed the phonics in their learning environment to provide them with repeated practise. Those that require additional support receive further interventions in the afternoon. We ensure that these lessons are sequenced, fast paced and engaging.
How do we teach Phonics?
Please see the attached document:
