Phonics
At Clayton St John, phonics begins in Nursery.
- Aspect 1: General sound discrimination – environmental sounds
- Aspect 2: General sound discrimination – instrumental sounds
- Aspect 3: General sound discrimination – body percussion
- Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme
- Aspect 5: Alliteration
- Aspect 6: Voice sounds
- Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting.
By the end of phase 1, children will have experienced a wealth of listening activities including songs, stories and rhymes. They will be able to distinguish between speech sounds and many will be able to blend and segment words orally. Some will also be able to recognise spoken words that rhyme and will be able to provide a string of rhyming words. Some children will be ready to start learning synthetic phonics and will move on to our next aspect of phonic teaching: Read, Write Inc.
- Learn to read and write the 44 phonemes in the English Language
- Read using sound blending
- Write words by saying the sounds and graphemes
- Read some short, simple ditties and then quickly progress to reading the storybooks – this includes developing comprehension skills
Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children are assessed continuously and grouped in ability for a 40 minute daily, discreet phonics lesson.
- Learning a new sound (see the order in the table)
- Revision of previous sounds
- Practising letter formation / spelling of words
- Blending and segmenting
- Reading passages/texts
Children are provided with opportunities to use and apply their knowledge from the Read, Write, Inc. phonics session in a variety of contexts throughout the day.
From Reception, children also take a reading book home every day. These are Read Write Inc Book Bag Books which link to the sounds already learnt. Adults in school listen to children read regularly throughout Reception and Key Stage 1 to support our ‘Learning to Read’ culture.
All children in Year 2 who have completed the Read, Write Inc Phonics Assessment begin the Read Write Spelling as well as completing regular comprehension tasks and activities. Children continue to revise the phonemes but begin to look at more complex spelling patters to support writing. Spelling teaching continues throughout Key Stage 2 using Read, Write Inc. Spelling.
Work packs
Children in KS1 and KS2 are given a work pack which contains the sounds learnt, red words and some letter formation reminders. These work packs are used in all lessons where children are writing to help them remember the phonemes they have already learnt.
Red Words
Red words often cannot often be phonetically decodable therefore we expect children to learn, read and spell these on sight.