Phonics

At Southmere Primary Academy we believe that developing strong reading skills is crucial for the children to develop a love of learning and to be able to access the wider curriculum.

What is Phonics?  

Phonics is the study of sounds. Children are taught to read and write using phonics, linking the phonemes (sounds in words) and graphemes (the symbols used to represent them).

What Phonics programme is used in school?

For the teaching of phonics we use the DfE accredited Essential Letters and Sounds programme. Children are actively taught and supported to use phonics as the prime approach to decoding, avoiding the use of other strategies. Children should not need to resort to guessing or using the pictures or grammatical context.

For more information on ELS, click here

Below you will find the progression of the programme:

Reception Progression

Year 1 Phonics Progression

Watch these clips to find out how to pronounce the sounds correctly…

Phonics Screening Check

What is the Phonics Screening Check?

The Phonics Screening Check is a quick and easy check of your child’s phonics knowledge. It helps the school confirm whether your child has made the expected progress. It is administered when children are in Year 1 (the month of June).

 What are ‘non/pseudo-words’?

The check will contain a mix of real words and ‘non-words’ or ‘pseudo-words’ (or ‘nonsense/alien words’). Children will be told before the check that there will be non-words that he or she will not have seen before. Many children will be familiar with this because many schools already use ‘non-words’ when they teach phonics. Non-words are important to include because words such as ‘vap’ or ‘jound’ are new to all children. Children cannot read the non-words by using their memory or vocabulary; they have to use their decoding skills.

After the check

The school will tell you about your child’s progress in phonics and how he or she has done in the screening check in the last half-term of Year 1.

If your child has found the check difficult, your child’s school should also tell you what support they have put in place to help him or her improve. You might like to ask how you can support your child to take the next step in reading.

Children who have not met the standard in Year 1 will retake the check in Year 2. All children are individuals and develop at different rates. The screening check ensures that teachers understand which children need extra help with phonic decoding.

 You will find a link to a previous Phonics Screening Check below…

Harder to Read and Spell Words

As well as Phonics it is important that children learn a sight vocabulary of words that appear frequently in reading, we call these Harder to Read and Spell words or HRS words. The children will learn these daily in Phonics and Guided Reading.

Children will also have a HRS Word Book that they will bring home everyday, this will give them the opportunity to practise the words at home for 5 minutes everyday. Our aim is that children will learn these words a year ahead of Age Related Expectations; eg at the end of Year 1 children will know all the words expected for Year 2.

As children learn the words they will be rewarded with certificates and prizes in class to encourage them.

Links to Songs and Activities

There are some great websites that have free games for your child to play…

The computer version is free and the app is sometimes free to download.

Launchpad for Literacy is an approach used to support children in learning pre-phonics skills.

The programme is predominantly used within the Early Years Foundation Stage where it is used to improve outcomes by creating firm foundations in pre-phonic skills and readiness for reading.

Where pupils leave the Early Years Foundation Stage and still require support in pre-phonics skills, Literacy Launchpad will continue to support them by identifying and closing specific skill gaps.