Phonics

At Aston we strive to ensure that all children become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One.  In order to do this we provide every child with high quality phonics which plays a key role in children developing word decoding skills.  In order to achieve this every child from Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 receives daily phonic lessons.  Every lesson has clear precise structure of revisit, teach, practise and apply. This allows for a recapping of previous knowledge and time to embed new learning, this can then be practised and applied in both reading and writing every day.

Our scheme of work for teaching Phonics is Song of Sounds, which is a child centred, multi sensory and creative approach to phonics.  The children make good progress as the scheme is catchy, interactive, immersive and engaging.  It has a rigourous sequence of progression of skills and understanding.  it is based on and is fully compatible wth Letters and Sounds an is based around the same six stages. It begins each day with a catchy song with a rhyme for each phoneme to the tune of 'Skip to my Lou'.

The scheme includes a systematic synthetic phonics programme which works in collaboration with the Collins Big Cat phonics reading scheme.  The books cover a broad and balanced selction of themes including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. 

Each day children will bring home a ‘reading book’ with the sound they have been learning in school captured within. These are sent home so that children can be supported further by parents and carers and provides another opportunity to practise and consolidate learning.  Throughout lessons children are also taught how to read and spell tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out e.g. was, you) so that they are confident with these.

At Aston children are taught phonics in whole class groups. This allows all children to access age appropriate phonics.  Any child who needs additional support with phonics may recieve additional intervention time at various points in the day to recap and revisit any gaps in their learning.

In Year 1 children will also do the Phonic Screening Test which assesses their phonic knowledge and ability to apply sounds to read both real and alien (pseudo) words.

In Year 2 children then move onto learning spelling patterns and rules.

All children are closely monitored and regularly assessed so that any children who are struggling or who have gaps or misconceptions are identified early and additional support put in place.  

Intent  

? To provide consistent, high quality phonics teaching which is accessed by all children regardless of gender, age, ability, disability, ethnic origin, faith, culture, social circumstances and sexual orientation.

? To ensure that the teaching of synthetic phonics is systematic and progressive throughout Foundation stage and Key Stage One to support phonetic knowledge and understanding.    

? To ensure that children have secure phonetic knowledge, understanding and skills so that they can decode words confidently and apply this when reading and writing.  

? To teach children aural discrimination, phonemic awareness and rhyme to aid reading, writing and spelling development.    

? To enable children to use phonic awareness across the curriculum.

? To provide children with strategies to identify and decode ‘tricky words’.  

Implementation

? To ensure phonics lessons occur daily and follow the scheme of work (Letters and Sounds)

? To ensure each class has a phonic display which is built up over time so children can refer to this to assist them when reading and writing.  

? To ensure ‘Tricky Words’ are taught consistently for each phase of phonics to aid High Frequency Word recognition and spelling.  

? Daily Phonic homework for each child so learning can be supported at home through the use of time to read sheets.  

? To ensure progress of all pupils is monitored and evaluated closely and all teachers have high aspirations of every pupil.

?  To ensure all children reach and exceed their full potential and additional support is put in place if we feel that children are finding an aspect of phonics challenging.  

Impact

? Children will make progress through the different phases of phonics in line with Year Group expectations and make progress from their own individual starting points.

? Children will become confident and resilient in tackling unfamiliar words by applying learnt knowledge and skills to segment, blend and read words which are real and nonsense.

? Children will demonstrate high levels of engagement in phonics and will apply their phonological knowledge when reading and writing and use the working walls to assist them when needed but become increasingly independent in this process.  

? Children will have an increased recognition of tricky words and high frequency words when reading and apply these when writing.

? Children with SEND will develop phonic skills and knowledge and they will develop their ability to apply this across the curriculum which will help to prepare them for the next stage in their education.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cg-CRabqyE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQHdBMLk-M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZvvix2bx98

Files to Download