Phonics

Please see bottom of the page for the Phonics Progression Document.

We start by teaching phonics in Oak Class using the highly successful ‘Letters And Sounds’ program. This forms the basis from which we have devised a thorough and rigorous phonics scheme, drawing on the validated scheme My Letters and Sounds, published by Schofield And Sims. Children have daily, structured phonics lessons and learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words (blending) and how those sounds can be written down (segmenting). This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well.

Phonics is taught in a systematic, progressive and structured way. Phonemes and graphemes are introduced gradually but at pace, starting with the easiest sounds and progressing to the more complex. ‘Tricky words’ (those which don’t follow the regular phonetic rules already learnt) are also introduced and directly taught systematically as part of the same scheme.

Our progression in phonics is divided into five phases. Phases One to Four cover the Reception year
and Phase Five covers Year 1. In each phase, new teaching builds upon the children’s knowledge
of grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and phonics skills taught in the previous phase.

Once children can blend sounds together to read words, they practise reading books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. Teachers read to the children every single day so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information texts. This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as supporting their writing.

Although phonics is our first taught strategy for decoding and reading, children are also encouraged to also use other cues to decode texts, such as using picture clues and the context of the sentence. 

Please click on the links below for a more detailed look at what is taught in each phase.