Phonics
Phonics Statement:
Phonics is taught in a highly structured programme of daily lessons across FS/KS1 and LKS2 in groups differentiated according to children’s phonic awareness and development. We use a systematic, synthetic phonics planning programme using the Letters and Sounds approach titled Red Rose Letters and Sounds.
This planning programme has been developed, continuously evaluated and refined over several years, using the expertise of effective classroom practitioners and phonics experts at LPDS.
The programme includes planning from Phase Two to Phase Five with specific daily sessions and a very rigorous approach to meet, and exceed, expectations based on the Early Learning Goals and the National Curriculum for Year One.
We ensure that all children receive a reading book that is carefully matched to the sound they are learning in phonics.
The intent behind us using Red Rose Letters and Sounds is to provide a rigorous and thorough planning programme in order to strengthen the teaching and learning of phonics, and ensure children become enthusiastic and successful readers and writers.
Each session gives an opportunity for children to revisit their previous experience, be taught new skills, practise together and apply what they have learned.
The consultants at LPDS have created a tightly focused progression from Phases Two to Five informed by classroom practice and subject expertise. All phases, but in particular Phase Five, have been more carefully sequenced to provide clarity with an explicit teaching progression. Red Rose Letters and Sounds incorporates frequent opportunities for application and consolidation of reading and writing skills, before introducing new Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs). Planning materials have been created in a user-friendly format, are easily accessible and can be adapted according to the children’s needs. All adults delivering sessions are trained to the same standard.
Phases of the Phonics Programme
Children in Nursery begin with Phase 1 which provides a range of listening activities through play, to develop their listening skills. Progress is tracked at the end of each term. As children move into Reception they continue to build upon the listening activities and are introduced to Phase 2 which marks the start of systematic phonic work. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence is introduced. The process of segmenting whole words and selecting letters to represent those phonemes is taught writing the letters to encode words. Phase 3 completes the teaching of the alphabet and then moves on to cover sounds represented by more than one letter, learning one representation for each of the 44 phonemes. At this stage just one spelling is given for each phoneme. When children become secure they continue into Phase 4 where they start to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants.
No new phonemes are introduced at this phase. It is expected that children will enter Phase 5 as they begin year 1, looking at alternative spellings for some phonemes and allowing the children to see the range of ways phonemes can be represented. It is expected that children entering Year 2 will start Phase 6 which develops a variety of spelling strategies including word specific spellings eg see/ sea, spelling of words with prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters where necessary. Also the accurate spelling of words containing unusual GPC's eg laughs, two.
The school spelling programs(No Nonsense Spelling) complement the phonics learning from Reception through to the end of KS2. The spelling of high frequency and tricky words are taught continuously throughout the phases.
Phonics Assessment:
Children’s progress is continually reviewed to allow for fluid movement between ability groups, and children move phonics group when it is felt necessary to meet their needs. Children are formally assessed at the end of each half term using Phonics Tracker. This hepls identify gaps in knowledge which leads to individualised intervention if necessary.
The national Phonics screening check is performed in June of Year 1. The purpose of the screening check is to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard. The children who did not meet the required standard for the check in year 1 enter again in year 2 with additional support. As children enter KS2 provision is made for those children still requiring daily phonics, using the Bounce Back Phonics programme.