Phonics at Red Hall

“The whole world opened up to me when I learned to read” ~ Mary McCleod Bethune

What is the intent of our Phonics curriculum?

We aim to provide our pupils with the best start to their reading experience. Phonics is a system that teaches children to read and write by breaking down words into separate sounds. The children are then taught how to blend (put the sounds together) these sounds together to read and write the whole word.  For instance: d, o and g when blended (said quickly) together makes the word dog.

Click here to download our Phonics Curriculum.

How do we implement our Phonics curriculum?

In Early Years we focus on Phase 1 Phonics, then in Key Stage One (and Key Stage Two if needed), we follow Read, Write, Inc. Before the children can learn to recognise letters and sounds, they have to be able to distinguish different sounds e.g. a car to a train, distinguish between different instruments etc. This is called Phase 1 Phonics and is what we heavily focus on in Early Years.  In Early Years, we follow Letters and Sounds which incorporates a multi-sensory approach. Our Early Years team are fantastic at introducing Phonics sounds when each, individual child is ready. 

 Phase 1 Phonics focuses on enhancing children’s speaking and listening abilities, building a strong foundation for future phonics learning. The primary goal of this phase is to help children become attuned to the sounds in their environment, preparing them to develop skills in oral blending and segmenting.

Phonics Phase One activities are broken into seven different aspects:

• Aspect 1 – Environmental Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 2 – Instrumental Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 3 – Body Percussion Sound Discrimination
• Aspect 4 – Rhythm and Rhyme
• Aspect 5 – Alliteration
• Aspect 6 – Voice Sounds
• Aspect 7 – Oral Blending and Segmenting

The purpose of these different aspects is to develop students’ language abilities in the following ways:

• Learning to listen attentively
• Enlarging their vocabulary
• Speaking confidently to adults and other children
• Discriminating between different phonemes
• Reproducing audibly the phonemes they hear
• Using sound-talk to segment words into phonemes

Towards the end of Nursery, when the children have finished Phase 1, we focus on the children learning the first few sounds and letters of the Read, Write, Inc program including m, a, s, d and t.

From Reception, into Key Stage One (and Key Stage Two if needed), our school uses Read, Write Inc. to teach phonics systematically. Daily sessions are taught in targeted groups that are streamed according to ability. Each session allows children to revisit their prior learning, be taught new skills and practise and apply what they have learned. 

What is the impact of our Phonics curriculum?

• Children will be prepared and pass the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.
• Children can read phonetically decodable words and sentences.

What experiences will the children receive in Phonics?

• Daily Phonics lessons – the children request particular games to help their learning.
• Daily Reading sessions
• Phonic competitions
• Weekly Phonics Challenges
• Stay & Play sessions

By the end of their time at Red Hall, what will all our children have taken from Phonics?

• Developed a passion for Reading.
• An understanding of a range of sounds and spelling techniques.
• Resilience – to continuously improve and not see this as a failure. We know some children can find learning to read tricky!

Key Information for Parents & Carers:

This link to explains what Read, Write, Inc. Phonics is and this link explains how to pronounce all of the sounds.

The following video is an example of blending sounds with Fred:

 

Sounds

Set 1 Sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending

Set 1
Sound	Rhyme
m	Down Maisie then over the two mountains. Maisie, mountain, mountain.
a	Round the apple, down the leaf.
s	Slide around the snake
d	Round the dinosaur’s back, up his neck and down to his feet.
t	Down the tower, across the tower,
i	Down the insects body, dot for the head.
n	Down Nobby and over the net.
p	Down the plait, up and over the pirates face.
g	Round the girls face, down her hair and give her a curl
o	All around the orange
c	Curl around the caterpillar
k	Down the kangaroos body, tail and leg
u	Down and under the umbrella, up to the top and down to the puddle
b	Down the laces, over the toe and touch the heel
f	Down the stem and draw the leaves
e	Slice into the egg, go over the top, then under the egg
l	Down the long leg
h	Down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
sh	Slither down the snake, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
r	Down the robot’s back, then up and curl
j	Down his body, curl and dot
v	Down a wing, up a wing
y	Down a horn, up a horn and under the yak’s head.
w	Down, up, down, up the worm.
th	Down the tower, across the tower, then down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back
z	Zig-zag-zig, down the zip.
ch	Curl around the caterpillar, , then down the horse’s head to thehooves and over his back
qu	Round the queen’s head, up to her crown, down her hair and curl
x	Cross down the arm and leg and cross the other way
ng	A thing on a string
nk	I think I stink

Please do not use letter names at this early stage.

The children are then taught Set 2 Sounds.

 

And finally, Set 3 Sounds.

Some Phonic sounds can be spelled in different ways, the children are taught this in set 3. such as:

Long  vowel sound	Set 2 Speed Sound cardsTeach these first	Set 3 Speed Sound cards
ay	ay: may I play	a-e: make a cake	ai: snail in the rain
ee	ee: what can you see	ea: cup of tea	e: he me we she be
igh	igh: fly high	i-e: nice smile
ow	ow: blow the snow	o-e: phone home	ao: goat in a boat
oo	oo: poo at the zoo	u-e: huge brute	ew: chew the stew
or	or: shut the door	aw: yawn at dawn
air	air: that’s not fair	are: share and care
ir	ir: whirl and twirl	ur: nurse for a purse	er: a better letter
ou	ou: shout it out	ow: brown cow
oy	oy: toy for a boy	oi: spoil the boy

 

Reading

Children will be introduced to ‘Ditty books’ when they successfully begin to read single words. The short vowels should be kept short and sharp.

Children use sound-blending (Fred Talk) to read short ditty books. They will bring these home once they can blend and read at a sufficient level. Within all the books children will have red and green words to learn to help them to become speedy readers. Red words are words that are not easily decodable whereas the green words are linked to the sounds they have been learning and are easily decodable.

Nonsense words (Alien words)      

   

As well as learning to read and blend real words children will have plenty of opportunities to apply their sound recognition skills on reading ‘Nonsense words’. These words will also feature heavily in the Year One Phonics Screening check in the Summer Term. 

Year One Screening Check

Every Year one child in Summer term will take a phonics screening check. In this test, the children are expected to read 40 decodable words including some nonsense words. This progress check identifies children who may need additional support in their reading. Any child who does not achieve the pass mark in this test will be retested in Year Two.

How you can help at home

• Reading every night at home with your child
• Every week each child will be sent home a phonics decodable book at their reading level. Read these with your child and ask them questions about the story
• Practise reading and writing tricky words
• Complete homework

Every week each child will be sent home targeted phonics homework at their level. Practise saying, reading and writing the sounds.

You can also watch lessons via the Ruth Miskin portal and play the following games:

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zgkw2hv