Phonics
Intent
At Lime Walk our aim is to develop a love for reading and for all our children to leave primary school being able to read fluently and accurately. We believe that reading opens doors for further learning, therefore children who read more, will learn more. Access to phonics will provide the skills for our children to become competent readers and writers. Phonics is the development of skills needed when learning to read. If children cannot recognise and decode words on a page then they will not be able to understand what is being said. This fundamental skill impacts hugely on children’s self-esteem and future life chances, so Lime Walk Primary School aims to teach high quality phonics, ensuring that pupils have the best possible start in their school journey.
Implementation
Lime Walk uses a systematic synthetic phonics programme called “Monster Phonics”. This is a DFE validated scheme, which covers six early stages of reading. It accelerates learning by allowing children to be introduced to new graphemes using monsters to group graphemes for recall. This provides an easy and fun memory cue for children. Monster Phonics also uses colour-coding to highlight the grapheme when being taught something new. Once the grapheme is taught and secure, the colour is removed.
Phonics is taught daily throughout the Foundation stage and Key Stage 1, with extra intervention or top up for those that may need it as they move to Key Stage 2. Each lesson is approximately 20-30 minutes and is split into 4 clear sections; recap of prior learning, an introductory power point for that session’s focus, a hook (video, song or story) and finally the main activity, where children apply the knowledge gained that session. Alongside this, high frequency and common exception words are also taught, both discreetly within similar sounds/spelling patterns and as standalone sessions, often taking place at the end of the week.
Children are taught to recognise the sounds in words (phonemes) and the letters or groups of letters that make the sounds (graphemes). They learn to segment words (break them up into the sounds they make) and blend words (merge the sounds back together). Children use this knowledge to support them to read real and nonsense (alien) words. Skills are separated into different stages, each of which building from the last. In Nursery, children focus on level 1. Pupils in Reception are exposed to levels 2, 3 and 4, with Year 1 tackling level 5 and finally Year 2 covering level 6.
Children who are working below the expected level for their year group, or who need further phonics support as they move into Key Stage 2 are provided with support in interventions.
The table in the documents section on this page gives a brief overview of the type of learning in each level.
Meet our monsters! This video will introduce you to all the characters that will help your child learn to read.
A little confused by phonics? Don’t worry, this video will show you how to say the pure speech sounds with your children! It also shows you the action for each sound to aid your child with remembering and applying these.
Impact
By ensuring good quality teaching of phonics we are providing pupils with the tools needed to be secure within the skills of decoding and word recognition, in turn allowing them to read fluently. From this children will be able to develop their abilities within higher order reading for meaning, alongside reading for pleasure.