Phonics
Our Vision and Aims for Phonics
Phonics is an essential ingredient in learning to read. Phonics is a method of teaching children to read and write by demonstrating the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language (phonemes), and the letters or groups of letters (graphemes) or syllables of the written language. Teaching children to blend the sounds represented by letters together helps them decode unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out. For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”.
At Olive Hill, we prioritise teaching reading systematically early on: children in Foundation Stage and in Key Stage One take part in phonics sessions every day from the time they start in reception. Phonics at Olive Hill is taught following the Sounds~Write programme, a DfE validated systematic phonics programme which breaks the teaching of phonics and early reading into two sections: the initial code and the extended code. Children in reception start learning the initial code, the majority of which involves teaching children to read simple word structures and sounds where one letter represents one sound. Children are taught to read sounds in the context of words right from the start, rather than as individual letters. Once they are secure with the initial code, they will move onto the extended code in year one and continue this in year two. The extended code is more complex and involves sounds which are represented by more than one letter and the different sounds which can be represented by the same spelling.
How can I support my Child to read using phonics?
Good listening skills are important when preparing children to learn phonics; taking the time to talk and read, share rhymes, and listen to different sounds will all aid with this learning process.
Your child will be provided with a decodable reading book which matches the phonics they are learning in school. Reading this daily is invaluable, even for just 5 to 10 minutes per day. These decodable books can be read over and again to help build fluency.
Sounds~Write offer a free online parent course that introduces the program in an easily accessible way. See the link for further details.
Sounds~Write offer an App for Apple products that will support your child with phonics at home. See the link for further details.
Building positive relationships with books and reading starts at home. Reading to your child and sharing stories together is an excellent way to model a love of books.
It is important for children to produce correct, pure pronunciation of sounds when they are learning to read. The link below demonstrates how the first sets of sounds should be pronounced. See the link for further details.
Phonics Screening Check
All children in England sit a statutory phonics screening check at the end of year one to confirm that they have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard. The check contains a mix of real words and ‘non-words’ or ‘pseudo-words’ (sometimes known as ‘nonsense/alien words’). Children will be told before the check that there will be non-words that they will not have seen before. Many children will be familiar with this because many schools already use ‘non-words’ when they teach phonics. ‘Non-words’ are important to include because words such as ‘vap’ or ‘jound’ are new to all children. Children cannot read the ‘non-words’ by using their memory or vocabulary; they have to use their decoding skills which are needed every time they encounter an unfamiliar word when they read.
Alphabetic code taught in Reception:
Unit 1: a, i, m, s, t
Unit 2: n, o, p
Unit 3: b, c, g, h
Unit 4: d, f, v, e
Unit 5: k, l, r, u
Unit 6: j, w, z
Unit 7: x, y, ff, ll, ss
Initially, children are taught to recognise the sounds within words containing 2 or 3 sounds, for example, ‘mat’ or ‘pot’. They will move onto learn to read words by blending 4 or 5 sounds, for example ‘frost’ or ‘floss’.
For further guidance on the Sounds~Write programme, please visit the links below:
If you have any questions about what your child is learning in phonics, please speak to your child’s teacher.