Overview of the Subject:

Phonics is taught daily at Spire Junior School by staff who share a passion and knowledge for the subject. The enthusiasm and focus within the lessons is evident. The lessons themselves follow the government-approved systematic synthetic scheme, planned by Twinkl. Systematic Synthetic Phonics is an evidence-based, structured approach to teaching children to read. This method of reading helps children to learn the relationships between the sounds (phonemes) of spoken language and the letter symbols (graphemes) of the written language. During our most recent Ofsted inspection, early reading was a focus:

‘There is a strong culture of reading at the school. Leaders ensure that there is a concentrated focus on reading from the moment that pupils join the school. There is a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics. If pupils fall behind, staff provide them with extra sessions so that they can catch up. Leaders make sure that the books pupils are given to read match the letters and sounds that they are learning. Pupils enjoy the opportunity to win books from the school’s book vending machine.’ Ofsted May 2022

Subject Information:

Intent:

At Spire Junior School, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Through daily, systematic and consistent, high-quality phonics teaching, children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. To allow our children to develop a strong phonic awareness and effective blending and decoding skills, we have chosen to use a synthetic phonics programme called Letters and Sounds.  Letters and Sounds is a method of learning centred around letter sounds and phonics, blending sounds together to read and spell words and applying these skills across the curriculum.  Using Read Write Inc. the children learn to read fluently so that they can put all their energy into comprehending what they read.  We passionately believe that teaching children to read and write independently is one of the core purposes of a primary school enabling them to access a broad and exciting curriculum and ensuring they flourish as learners throughout their time at our school. These fundamental skills not only hold the keys to the rest of the curriculum but also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life chances.

 

Implementation:

At Spire Junior School we use the Department of Education approved ‘Twinkl’ programme for our teaching of phonics. This allows our phonics teaching and learning to be progressive from the fundamentals taught during Key Stage 1.

During EYFS, pupils will have been introduced to Level One phonics, which concentrates on developing their speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Level Two. As children continue to build on their listening skills and are introduced to Level Two, which marks the start of systematic phonics work. They will have had discrete, daily phonics sessions where they revise previous learning, are taught new graphemes/phonemes, practise together and apply what they have learnt. Through Letters and Sounds, the children are taught the 44 phonemes that make up all the sounds required for reading and spelling. These phonemes include those made by just one letter and those that are made by two or more. Children work through different levels and as they grow in confidence and experience, they are introduced to alternative ways of representing the same sound.

When the children start at Spire Junior School, we assess those children who did not pass the phonics screening to ensure we can meet their individual needs. Children are assessed at each level and against the sounds within those levels. From this they receive specific daily sessions that match children’s current knowledge and understanding whilst ensuring the children are suitably challenged. This support caters to their individual requirements. Children use phonetically decodable books matched to their phonics knowledge that focusses on the level/sound that they are learning and games to play to support them. This daily support is maintained throughout school, in all classes. Teachers regularly assess children’s phonics knowledge using the phonics assessment grid. These regular assessments inform planning and allow teachers to identify any gaps in learning.

Books are chosen from our reading schemes – Big Catt, Oxford Reading Tree, Project X, Word Sparks, Snapdragons, Hero Academy, Tree Topsand.

The children who require phonic support are taught the essential skills needed for reading. Phonics is taught daily to all children who did not pass their Key Stage 1 phonics screening. Phonics teaching is systematic, engaging, lively and interactive.

Staff systematically teach learners the relationship between sounds and the written spelling patterns, or graphemes, which represent them. Staff ensure Phonics is an integrated part of all learning. Daily phonics is taught though level group input, differentiated activities for each group linked to the graphemes they are learning.

Impact:

Data from Year 3 pupils, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, highlights the impact daily phonics/spelling had on the attainment in spellings of pupils over an academic year.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers: pupils will be confident in their phonic knowledge; they will be able to blend and segment words confidently; pupils will learn to love reading through fun but challenging phonic activities; and we will create a culture where a secure knowledge of phonic sounds enables reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through school.

What do phonics lessons look like?

Daily phonics lessons are 30 minutes long. Each phonics lesson includes the following elements:

 • Revise – overlearn the previous graphemes and words

 • Teach – introduce a new grapheme/words

• Practise – develop GPCs (grapheme phoneme correspondences)/read and spell new words

• Apply – use new graphemes/words in games and activities to secure knowledge

• Assess – monitor progress within each level to inform planning

Children progress from Level 2 to Level 5

Long-term subject overview:

Level 2

Grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs), blending and segmenting; knowledge of the alphabet and letter names.

Level 3

Consolidation of Level 2; phonemes consisting of two or more letters (digraphs).

If assessment shows that children are confused with choices for long vowel phonemes, for example they write trane instead of train or lite instead of light, it is advised that you begin at this point rather than Level 5. The children need to consolidate the most common version of the phoneme before moving on to the alternatives.

Level 4

Consolidation of Level 2 and Level 3 and reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words (creep, bring, starlight).

Level 5

Consolidation of Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4; alternative spellings for phonemes (/ai/ as in day, came, rain) and alternative pronunciations for graphemes (ea – as in eat, bread, great).

Level 6

Level 6 is taught with the aim of children becoming fluent readers and accurate spellers. Children should be able to read hundreds of words using the following strategies: Reading them automatically. Decoding them quickly and silently.

Individual phonics

Children who are still working on the phonics levels should be assessed and have books that relate to their specific sound/set. Individual phonics sessions should take place at least 3 times a week and cover the same process as the sessions (Revisit and Review, Teach, Practise, Apply). Individual sessions should allow time for specific/focused reading (decode, prosody, comprehension)

Record keeping

• Records should be kept for those individual children accessing personalised phonics intervention (yellow folder)
• These children should have sound/set specific book to be read daily. This book is to be kept in the yellow phonics folder.
• A record of daily reading to be kept in yellow folder
• Assessments are as the teacher/TA sees fit & record of assessment to be kept in yellow folder

What else is happening in phonics?

Phonics is the bedrock of our reading curriculum. Please see the reading curriculum page to see how our student's reading journey continues.

Phonics at home:

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/     Subscription required

https://www.youtube.com/@TwinklPhonics Subscription required

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resource/t-ug-039-twinkl-phonics-user-guide  free

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/twinkl-phonics-suite/id508771799   free