Our approach to teaching phonics
In our school we have recently changed our chosen phonics scheme to the DfE accredited scheme Reading Planet Rocket Phonics.
Children are introduced to the letter sounds (phonemes) and the names of the written letters they belong to (grapheme). Stories, movement and songs about each sound help children to explore these in a multi-sensory approach, which supports deeper learning. In EYFS, children are introduced to two letter sounds each week and work on grapheme recognition, phoneme articulation and forming the associated written letter/s. In addition, they are introduced to two 'Tricky Words', also known as 'common exception words', which are high frequency words which do not follow the phonetic code, such as 'I', 'the' and 'what'. Teaching continues in Year 1 and Year 2 and into Year 3, as needed.
In EYFS and Key Stage 1 reading books, which reflect the children's current levels of phonemic knowledge, are read in school and taken home to practise and share with their families. Children also choose a storybook to have read to/with them by an adult at home. As children become more fluent in their reading skills they are introduced to the online reading platform Accelerated Reader, (usually at the beginning of Year 3) where their reading journey can be logged and there are opportunities to develop their vocabulary and comprehension skills in and outside of the school day.
To find out more about our approach to teaching phonics for reading and writing, please click this link.
Please see below for Rocket Phonics resources to support your child at home.
Articulating phonics
It is essential that children learn to articulate the phonics sounds correctly in order to be able to use these to blend sounds for reading and segment sounds for writing.
Many people accidentally add a 'schwa' sound to the end of the phonemes, which distorts the sound and makes it harder for children to hear and say the 'pure' sound. Take a look at the videos below, which show how to correctly pronounce the phonemes your children will learn at school.
