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St Oswald's CatholicPrimary School

Phonics

Phonics at St Oswald's

Intent

As a whole school, we are committed to using the Sounds-Write (linguistic phonics) approach to assist the children from Reception to Year 2 to learn to read, write and spell independently with accuracy, understanding and confidence.

At St Oswald's Catholic Primary School we believe that the teaching of Phonics plays a vital role in teaching children to read, write and spell. We follow the ‘Sounds-Write’ Phonics Scheme which is a high-quality program that is endorsed by the Department for Education.

Our aim is for the vast majority of children to be confident readers by the end of Key Stage 1. High quality Phonics teaching enables children to decode new words confidently and independently and leads to improved understanding. This will enable the children to read for pleasure and develop their comprehension skills. Sounds-Write phonics also teaches children how to spell words and help them to become confident writers.

Implementation

In Nursery phonics is taught through listening games and oral segmenting and blending. Formal teaching of letter symbols and sound correspondence is not taught until Reception. Sounds Write is a Sensory-Motor approach to teaching reading and spelling. It requires: · Visual discrimination of letter shapes · Auditory discrimination of the sounds in speech (we always say the sound as we write it) · Integration of auditory and visual skills (Sounds match to spellings, spellings match to sounds). The Sounds-Write approach ensures that: Children develop key concepts about the way English is written. Children practise the skills essential for reading and spelling accurately. Children learn the sounds and the spellings of English.

The main objective of the teaching and learning of Phonics is to enable all children to access reading and writing at an age-appropriate level. This is best achieved when there is:

A consistent whole school approach to the teaching of Phonics throughout Foundation Stage, KS1 and KS2.
Rigorous planning, assessment, and tracking.
Sufficient training provided to enable the implementation of Sounds-Write based teaching of Phonics by all teaching staff involved in the teaching of Phonics.

Sounds-Write has four key concepts that must be followed. They are:

Letters are symbols or spellings that represent sounds from left to right, across the page
A sound can be spelt with 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters
The same sound can be spelt in more than one way
Many spellings can represent more than one sound

Sounds-Write is a quality first Phonics Programme that offers the classroom teacher an instructional method that works because it is a structured, multi-sensory, progressive and co-ordinated approach to teaching children to read and spell. The principal attainment targets are:

The majority of children to have completed the Initial code by the end of Foundation Stage.
Higher achieving children (in Foundation stage and KS1) to be identified and moved through the planning progression at a more rapid pace.
The majority of Year 1 children to pass the Year 1 Phonics Screening test.
The majority of children to have completed the Extended code by the end of KS1.
All children who did not meet these targets in KS1 to continue to follow the Sounds-Write programme in KS2.

Children failing to meet the principal attainment targets will receive targeted intervention which will be tracked and monitored.

Phonics at St Oswalds

What do children learn in Reception?

Children in Reception begin with the Initial Code where they practise all three key skills whilst learning the one-to-one sound-spelling correspondences and securing their understanding of key concept 1. This builds up confidence and phonic knowledge enabling them to read and spell a wide range of words and sentences.

At first, children learn to read and spell simple one-syllable words with a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) sound structure (for example, 'sat'). By the end of Reception, they can read and write one-syllable words with up to five, or even six, sounds such as 'twist', 'grand' or 'scraps'.

Children also develop their knowledge of key concept 2 as they learn to read and spell words containing some sounds spelled with two letters (the sound /sh/ in ‘fish’ or the sound /th/ in ‘thin’, for example) as well as the three-letter spelling < tch > for the sound /ch/ in ‘catch’. Key concept 3 is introduced towards the end of Reception as the students learn about a small number of sounds that can be spelled in more than one way (for example, the sound /k/ spelled as < k > in ‘kit’, < c > in ‘cat’ and < ck > ‘pick’).

What do children learn from Year 1?

Once the Initial Code has been mastered, children continue to practise all three key skills whilst learning the Extended Code and developing key concepts 2, 3 and 4. Learning of the Extended Code is a lifelong process – we all continue to develop our understanding how to read and spell in English whenever we encounter new words. This is why the Sounds-Write approach is used right up to the end of KS2 to read and spell polysyllabic words of increasing complexity.

Children in Years 1 and 2 develop their code knowledge through explicit, systematic teaching of the Extended Code units. Polysyllabic words are introduced in Year 1.

Children in Years 3 and 4 revisit all of the Extended Code units and learn to read and spell increasingly complex polysyllabic words.

Children in Year 5 continue to consolidate and develop their knowledge, with the Sounds-Write approach used to teach the reading and spelling of vocabulary across the curriculum. There is a growing focus on etymology (the origin of words) and morphology (the structure of words).

When is Sounds-Write taught?

Children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 have a 30-minute Sounds-Write session every day.

Children in Years 3 to 5 have planned and incidental teaching of reading and spelling across the curriculum using the Sounds-Write approach.

Some children require more time and practice when learning to read and spell, and they are supported through ‘keep-up’ and ‘catch-up’ intervention sessions in addition to the whole class phonics sessions.

What books or reading schemes are used?

Children who are beginning to learn to read use phonically-controlled books that we call ‘decodable readers’. These books are carefully written to focus on the code the children have been taught in phonics lessons so far. Decodable readers allow the children to practise their developing skills and they will be sent home to give even more opportunities for practice. Parents/carers are asked to support their children by hearing them read aloud.

At St Oswalds, we use decodable readers that match the scope and sequence of the Sounds-Write programme.

Once children have developed their skills and their code knowledge, they begin to move away from decodable readers and read a wider range of books from Oxford University Press (OUP).

In EYFS and KS1, we also send ‘richer read’ books from our school library home for you to read to your child. This helps to promote a culture of reading and develops your child’s vocabulary.