Phonics

Our expert in Phonics and Phonics teaching strategies is Mrs Paine.

Overview

Intent:

Carlton Primary School has, at its core, a desire to develop children who are articulate, resilient and curious learners. We believe that by embedding our five values within a broad and enriched curriculum, alongside the promotion of physical and mental well-being, we will develop rounded individuals who have the fundamental abilities to contribute positively to wider society. We want our students to have firm foundations in the core subject areas and we will teach these academic areas with rigour and challenge.

At Carlton Primary School, we strive to ensure that children become successful, fluent readers who develop a love for reading. Staff at Carlton are committed to the inclusion of all pupils and believe everyone should be equally valued. We value every individual and celebrate their achievements, identify and respond to individual needs, set suitable learning challenges for every pupil and identify and overcome potential barriers to learning for individuals and groups. We help support this through a combination of high quality phonics teaching combined with various opportunities for children to listen to a range of books read by adults/peers, to look at and read a range of books themselves, adults promoting fluency and language comprehension and the promotion of language and oracy throughout school.

Carlton Primary School aims to reinforce a consistent, high quality approach to the teaching of Phonics across the Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage One and on into Key Stage Two for children who still need this further support.

Our main aims are:

To teach children aural discrimination, phonemic awareness and rhyme to aid reading, writing and spelling development.
To encourage the use of segmenting and blending so that decoding skills provide a sound foundation for reading, writing and spelling.
To ensure the teaching of Phonics is lively and interactive.
To enable children to use phonic awareness across the curriculum.
To ensure that children know the 44 phonemes within the English language.
To teach children to recognise the graphemes within words and associate them with the appropriate phoneme when reading.
To provide children with strategies to identify and decode ‘tricky words.’
To foster a love of reading.

Implementation:

Teaching and Learning

At Carlton Primary we use a systematic, structured phonics programme called Read Write Inc. Phonics by Ruth Miskin.

Read Write Inc. is divided into set sounds and storybooks with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. Children have time to practise and rapidly expand their ability to read and spell words. They are also taught to read and spell common exception words (tricky words), which are words with spellings that are unusual and cannot be segmented or blended.

Through the storybooks, there is a key focus on consolidation to ensure that children have the opportunities to practise and embed their phonic knowledge, building on their knowledge and understanding to apply these skills in their independent reading and writing.

Children use phonic knowledge when they are reading and writing. This approach has been shown to provide a quick and efficient way for most young children to learn to read and write words on the page, fluently and accurately. We want children to develop this skill so that it becomes automatic. This also helps them with their spelling.

Curriculum Map:

We follow the Read Write Inc. Progression Map across our school and know the minimum expectations our children at Carlton Primary School will achieve in each year group in phonics and early reading.

	Reception	Year 1	Year 2
Autumn 1	Teach Set 1 sounds: m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f e l h r j v w x y z	Teach Set 2 sounds: ay ee igh ow oo oo ar or air ir ou oy · Teach reading of words containing these Set 2 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing Set 1 sounds	Continue to teach Set 3 sounds · Teach reading of multisyllabic words containing all sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing Set 3 sounds.
Autumn 2	Recap any single letter alphabet gaps from the sounds above. · Teach children to blend using single letter alphabet sounds. Should know 25 single letter sounds	Review all Set 2 sounds · Teach reading of words containing these Set 2 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing Set 1 sounds, particularly WT 1.6-1.7 Should know 47 sounds (including last 6 of set 2)	· Recap any missing sound gaps and build fluency when reading stories. · Children should complete the programme at end of Aut 2: Children can read stories and passages at a pace of 90 words per minute. They can read all sounds in words, including multisyllabic words, with little or no hesitation.
Spring 1	Teach Set 1 Special Friends: sh th ch qu ng nk · Secure blending of cvc words using single letter alphabet sounds (WT 1.1-1.5).	Teach Set 2 sounds, particularly: ar or air ir ou oy · Teach reading of words containing these Set 2 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing ay ee igh ow oo oo.
Spring 2	Recap Set 1 Special Friends: sh th ch qu ng nk · Secure blending of words containing these sounds (WT 1.4-1.6). Should know 31 sounds (including set 1 special friends)	Teach Set 3 sounds: ea, a-e · Teach reading of words containing these Set 3 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing all Set 2 sounds Should know 57 sounds (including first 10 of set 3)
Summer 1	Recap Set 1 sound gaps. · Teach blending of words containing consonant blends (WT 1.7). Should know 35 sounds (including double consonants ff,ss,ll, ck)	Continue to teach Set 3 sounds · Teach reading of words containing these Set 3 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing all Set 2 and Set 3 sounds. Should know 64 sounds (including last 7 set 3)
Summer 2	Teach Set 2 sounds: ay ee igh ow oo oo ar or air ir ou oy · Teach reading of words containing these Set 2 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing Set 1 sounds	Continue to teach Set 3 sounds · Teach reading of words containing these Set 3 sounds. · Build speed of reading words containing Set 3 sounds
End of year expectations	Children can read all Set 1 sounds and some Set 2 sounds in words, including words with consonant blends. They have built speed of reading some of these words and can read them without hesitation Should know 41 sounds (including first 6 of set 2 ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo)	Children can read all Set 1, 2, 3 sounds in words and can read Set 1 and 2 sounds in words at speed. They can read some Set 3 sounds in words without hesitation. They can read at a pace of 60 words per minute.

Once children have learnt set sounds, they will be learning to read and comprehend through storybooks. Our goal is for children to:

Work out unfamiliar words quickly – including new vocabulary and names
Read familiar words speedily – that is, words they have been taught
Read texts - including the words they have been taught – fluently

All children should achieve these expectations, if they have followed the programme from Reception:

	Reception	Year 1	Year 2
End Autumn 1	Read single-letter Set 1 sounds	Read Purple Storybooks; read some Set 2 sounds	Read Blue Storybooks
End of Autumn Term	Read all Set 1 sounds; blend sounds into words orally;	Read Pink Storybooks; read all Set 2 sounds	Read Blue Storybooks with increasing fluency and comprehension
End of Spring 1	Blend sounds to read words; read short Ditty stories	Read Orange Storybooks; read some Set 3 sounds	Read Grey Storybooks
End of Spring Term	Read Red Storybooks	Read Yellow Storybooks	Read Grey Storybooks with fluency and comprehension
End of Summer 1	Read Green Storybooks; read some Set 2 sounds	Read Yellow Storybooks; read all of Set 3 sounds	Access Comprehension off scheme group
End of Summer Term	Read Green or Purple Storybooks	Read Blue Storybooks	Access Comprehension off scheme group

Opportunities to develop subject specific literacy – oracy and vocabulary:

At Carlton we ensure that all staff who are teaching phonics are trained in the application of Read Write Inc. and all staff across school use the correct pronunciation of all phonemes. We encourage adults and children to listen and speak to each other, which helps them to use language that is more relevant. As a staff, we model good listening that includes making eye contact with speakers, asking questions and commenting on what has been said. We give children opportunities to extend their spoken communication and use our full sentence stretch to help children use and extend full sentences.

Assessments

At Carlton Primary School, the purpose of monitoring and evaluation activities is to raise the overall quality of teaching and levels of pupil attainment. The Phonics Lead and SLT will monitor the quality of teaching and learning throughout the school through lesson observations, learning walks, half termly phonics assessments and data.

After each phonics session the children are given a sticker with the sound they have focussed on that day. This then informs parents and other members of staff and allows for children to continuously be working on the sounds they have learnt. If children are not yet secure with the sound from the day the member of staff leading the group will highlight the sound to allow children to continuously revisit the learning.

Every half term, children’s understanding and knowledge of phonics is assessed using the Read Write Inc assessments. The half-termly assessments ensure that the children are grouped effectively so that they all make sufficient progress. Children not meeting age related expectations are targeted for extra support or 1-1 tuition. Assessments are completed by a small group of staff, which are then moderated by the phonics lead. Children are assessed more often when in Reception Autumn term and if showing accelerated progress.

All Year 1 children take the Phonics Screening Check - a statutory assessment required by legislation. Those who do not meet the pass mark will be given support and intervention in Year Two. Staff identify children early on whom may need extra support.

Those children who do not obtain the required level set by the Phonics Screening Check will receive phonics teaching in the first term of year three – which will be further supported throughout the year and across Key Stage Two with a relevant intervention.

Learning environment

At Carlton Primary School, we stress an importance of phonics within the learning environment and ensure that it is evident within all areas of learning. In EYFS and KS1, teachers ensure the classrooms have an age appropriate display of all grapheme-phoneme correspondences related to Read Write Inc. phonics. In LKS2, there will be a complex sounds display to ensure they can use their phonics in spellings and beyond.

Reading

Phonics is the most widely used approach to teaching reading and spelling. It is an integral part of all children being able to read. We ensure that children are taught the skills necessary through strong, high quality, discrete phonics combined with opportunities for children to listen to a range of books read by an adult to promote fluency and language comprehension through a whole language approach. Children are given books to read at home from our Read Write Inc. scheme in EYFS and KS1 that are fully matched to their phonics learning. Alongside this, they receive an additional reading book for enjoyment and pleasure and a chosen library book from the school library. In KS2, children take one reading book and library book home each week.

All children are given the opportunity to read a variety of fiction and non-fiction books that they can read for pleasure in class and at home.

Inclusion

At Carlton, we aim to create a fully inclusive environment. Staff will plan for and utilise resources that take into account all learning styles, including visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. Resources such as magnetic whiteboards and letters, sound cards and sound mats will be evident during writing sessions. All activities will be firmly focused on achieving the intended learning outcome.

Children are grouped according to their ability in Phonics so that they are given the chance to succeed. Careful thought will be given to the provision of appropriately structured work for children with SEN, often through intervention groups or 1-1 tuition. The school uses a variety of strategies to enable children to have increased access to the curriculum through a broad-based, multi-sensory, visual, auditory and kinaesthetically planned phonic sessions.

Impact:

Children at Carlton will:

Read fluently for both pleasure and information.
Use spelling rules, phonics and grammar accurately.
Read and write clearly and with confidence in any given genre.
Speak clearly and confidently in any situation.
Listen actively and respond appropriately, developing knowledge and opinion.
Be able to proofread their own work and make amendments and improvements.
Children should progress through the phonics scheme in line with age related expectations, unless there is an identified need/barrier.
PSC pass rate should be equal to or above national.

Phonics

Our expert in Phonics and Phonics teaching strategies is Mrs Paine.

Overview

Intent:

Implementation:

Impact:

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