Phonics, Reading and Spelling at

St Michael's CE Primary School

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‘The journey to independent reading and writing begins with Phonics’

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New DFE Guidance for Early Reading and Phonics

Mrs Craythorne

Phonics Lead

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Miss Fryer

Early Years Phase Leader

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Mrs Williams

Lower Phase Leader and Reading Lead

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Phonics terminology

Phoneme - smallest unit of sound - d/o/g

Grapheme - written sound (letter/or group of letters used to represent a particular phoneme when writing) - the word tap consists of three graphemes t, a, and p

GPCs - grapheme phoneme correspondence - the relationship between the written representation and the spoken sound.

Digraph/trigraph - two/ three letters making one phoneme - ay/igh

Segmenting - identify each individual phoneme in a word working from left to right. We segment to spell

De-code- work out and read a word.

Blending - combining individual phonemes into one word working from left to right. We blend to read

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High Frequency Words- words which occur most often in English some of which cannot be sounded out phonetically. You may see them abbreviated as HFW or called ‘tricky’ or ‘key’ words. Your children will need to learn to recognise the word and say it (whole word recognition). For example: said, have, was, any, once.

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Phonics teaching structure at St Michael’s

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What Phonics looks like at St Michael’s...

Nursery: Follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised ‘Foundations for Phonics’ guidance starting in Autumn 2. The focus is on daily oral blending and language development through high quality activities and rhymes.

Reception: Phonics starts in week 2 to ensure the children make a strong start. By the end of reception, children will have been taught up to the end of phase 4.

Year 1: Recap phases 3 and 4. The main focus is on phase 5. This is the largest phase with alternative spellings.

Year 2: Phonic lessons review all the phase 5 sounds, see where the gaps are and what pathway to follow - addressing gaps or moving onto spellings.

Year 2-6: There are planned phonics ‘catch-up’ sessions to address specific reading/writing gaps. These are short, sharp sessions lasting 10 minutes in length.

How we teach phonics in Reception and Year 1

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• Four direct teaching sessions per week
• One Review and Revise session per week
• Fast paced and systematic approach
• Repeated practise throughout each day
• Weekly Handwriting practice using formation phrases.
• Daily individual and Group keep up sessions
• 6 weekly individual assessments

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How we teach phonics in Year 2

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• Two direct teaching sessions per week
• Fast paced and systematic approach
• Daily group Keep Up sessions
• Phase 5 review assessment at the end of this block
• Weekly spelling tests
• Bridge to spelling. And spelling units - teaching rules.

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Reading practice sessions in Reception and Year 1

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• Children across reception, year 1 apply their phonics knowledge by using a fully matched decodable reader in a small group reading practice session.

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• The three reading sessions focus on a the following reading skills; decoding, prosody and comprehension.

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• Sessions are between 15 and 30 minutes long and happen three times a week. There are approximately 6 children in a group.

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• We have a reading team who lead these sessions. This ensures consistency in approach and high quality sessions.

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• The same book will be taken home at the end of the week to ensure success is shared with the family.

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• Children who are not decoding, will have little blending lessons, and will bring home a wordless book to enjoy with their family developing language around stories.

Reading practice session in Year 2

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• Children across Year 2 apply their phonics knowledge by using a fully matched decodable reader in a 1:1 reading practice session with their class teacher.

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• The one reading session a week will focus on a the following reading skills; decoding, prosody and comprehension.

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• We will need the support of parents reading the book at least twice with their child to ensure all these reading skills are focused on in great detail.

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• Children who are needing additional support will have two more reading group session with the Year 2 teachers and the Phonics TA. These will be conducted in the same way as the Year 1 groups.

We use assessments to match your child the right level of book

Reading a book at the right level

This means that your child should:

• Know all the sounds and tricky words in their phonics book well
• Read many of the words by silent blending (in their head) – their reading will be automatic
• Only need to stop and sound out about 5% of the words by the time they bring the book home – but they should be able to do this on their own.
• Can have a deep understanding of the book and questions being asked.

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Books going home

As well as the ‘learning to read’ book that your child will bring home they will also bring home a book for sharing with you. This book is SO important. This is how we are going to give them the WILL to read. Please read with your child as often as you can – at least once a day if possible.

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Listening to your child read their phonics book

• Your child should be able to read their book without your help.
• If they can’t read a word read it to them.
• Talk about the book and celebrate their success.

Interesting facts:

Here’s how many words children would have heard by the time they were 5 years old:

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Never read to: 4,662 words;

1–2 times per week: 63,570 words

3–5 times per week: 169,520

Daily: 296,660 words;

Five books a day: 1,483,300 words

This demonstrates how powerful your conversations and interactions have on your child’s speaking, reading and writing!

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Phonics at home…

• Orally blending and identifying the initial sounds
• Recap phonemes taught in school using weekly homework sheet

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• Supporting your child with any gaps highlighted by school
• Tricky word revision from books the children are reading
• Model correct enunciation - see videos on Little Wandle Parent page
• Support letter formation using formation phrases
• Access Little Wandle Parents Page for support and guidance.

Supporting your child with phonics

It is really important that you pronounce the sounds correctly at home if you are supporting your child. These videos are on the website for you to refer to and if you are unsure, please ask your child’s teacher.

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L2L2R would love some help with volunteers.

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They are based in 10 schools in the local area and work with schools to encourage volunteers to come and read/listen to children read.

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CONTACT: helen@l2l2r.org

Any questions

Useful information for parents

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Oxford Owl:Information for parents about phonics screening check at the end of Year 1 https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/at-school/primary-school-assessment-tests/year-1-phonics-screening-check/

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Gov.co.uk: Example material https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-sample-materials-and-training-video

Little Wandles Letters and Sounds Revised: For parents https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

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