Freemantle
Church of England Community Academy Trust
Phonics
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Phonics is our primary approach to teaching reading, allowing access to our curriculum. Our phonics programme sets out to deliver a rigorous and sequential approach to the learning phonics. Our prime aim is to develop pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading. Developing fluent decoding allows pupils to understand what they read. Once our pupils gain accuracy and automaticity in word reading, they are able to focus on acquiring the meaning from the text they are reading. As children gain fluency, their motivation increases and they start to enjoy reading more and are willing to do more of it.
Our phonics programme is supported by Springhill Catholic Primary School who are an English Hub school. Working with them, we have developed an approach which maximises reading opportunities. Our approach is progressive however there are key consistencies which enable pupils to access phonics learning. Phonics lessons are facilitated using assessment information and therefore pupils are always working at an appropriate level. Because of this a significant logistical plan is put in place to ensure children learn in an appropriate environment with a supporting teacher or teaching assistant.
Within phonics sessions, pupils are taught and then encouraged to:
📎 Use accumulative reading - returning to the beginning of a sentence if they have segmented a word to read it.
📎Rereading phonics books in phonics sessions and at home throughout the week to develop fluency.
📎Say the sounds out loud to support accurate spelling in writing.
📎Add sound buttons to words during application activities and during the Higildy Pigildy part of the lesson.
| Nursery | Reception | Year 1 |
* Children respond to the Freemantle mantras * Intended completion of the phonics programme (Phase 1 – Phase 5c complete) | ||
* Voice sounds (children knowing how they can make sounds with their voices, for example: Make their voice go down a slide – wheee! * Instrumental sounds (e.g. sounds created by musical instruments) * Environmental sounds (recognising common noises we hear all around us in our daily lives) * Alliteration. * Body percussion (e.g. using clapping and stamping) * Rhythm and rhyme.
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* Children begin to acquire GPCs, starting with the first 3 sounds within phase 2: S A T * Oral blending and segmenting (e.g. hearing that d-o-g makes 'dog’) * Children follow a carpet-based approach, being introduced to phonemes one at a time and being taught 4 sounds each week. * Children are exposed to adjacent consonants for the first time. * Children first use phonics ‘booklets’ to facilitate practice and new learning/practice and application of GPCs * Cued articulation (a form a visual picture of each sound which children can then remember and produce) * Children first learn to ‘pair read’ taking it turns to read a decodable book. * Children read Big Cat phonics books for the first time. * Children take home phase 2 sound prompt pages for additional practice. | * Government Phonics screening * All children use phonics ‘booklets’ to facilitate practice and new learning/practice and application of GPCs
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* Application of oral blending and segmenting to support spelling * Children use sound buttons to mark sounds within words. | ||