Early Reading and Phonics

“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” Margaret Fuller

Here at Broseley, we recognise the importance of early reading in developing concentration, fluency and vocabulary, providing firm foundations for further learning and development.

Phonics

The phonics scheme

We proudly use a phonics scheme called Unlocking Letters and Sounds. This supports children’s phonic development in a clear progression and ensures consistent teaching across our Early Years and KS1 classrooms.

Definitions

Progression

We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of children joining us in Reception and begin by teaching the alphabet sounds. Daily, whole class phonics session teaching continues until the end of Autumn Term in Year 2. In Year 1, children begin to grow the phonics code to learn alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes.

Alongside learning the phonemes that graphemes make, children will be taught ‘common exception words’. These are words that are not decodable using phonics and need to simply be learned by sight.

PROGRESSION DOCUMENT

Here are some snippets of a Reception phonics lesson:

Pronunciation

As phonics has been developed over the years, pronunciation of some of the phonemes may now differ to what you remember learning yourselves in school. This is simply to support the skill of blending to read. Check out our wonderful children showing you how each phoneme is pronounced. (Top Tip: the ‘uh’ sound at the end of a phoneme is called schwa, remember to not pronounce this and you’ll be just fine, for example ‘sssss’ rather than ‘suh’)

Phase 2 Pronunciation:

Phase 3 Pronunciation:

Intervention

At Broseley, we believe that children should be supported to ‘keep-up’ rather than need to ‘catch-up’. Therefore, we regularly assess children on their phonics knowledge to quickly identify gaps and give children support to fill these gaps. This takes place in the form of a quick, one-to-one intervention with a trained practitioner.

Precision Grid Intervention - Recalling GPCs:

Blending Intervention: UV

Resources

We use the Unlocking Letters and Sounds resources in our classrooms to support all children. Grapheme mats are used for children to remember what graphemes look like to write. Feel free to use at home too – they are designed in the order that they are taught in school.

PHASE 2 GRAPHEME MAT

PHASE 2 COMMON EXCEPTION WORD MAT

PHASE 3 GRAPHEME MAT

PHASE 3 COMMON EXCEPTION WORD MAT

PHASE 4 COMMON EXCEPTION WORD MAT

PHASE 5 GRAPHEME MAT

PHASE 5 COMMON EXCEPTION WORD MAT

Early writing

Once your child begins to know some of the sounds, they will be able to begin using these in their writing. This requires a skill called ‘segmenting’. Segmenting is ___. Children are encouraged to use this skill independently. We promote the use of ‘segmenting fingers’ in a say it, sound it, write it approach. Check this out in action below.

As children get more confident with this towards the end of Reception and beyond, they may be able to automatically hear sounds and record them.

Early Reading

Guided reading

Children read in school in a small group with a trained practitioner twice a week. They explore the same book in both sessions and each session takes a different focus.

Reading at home

We encourage you to read with your child every day at home to continue to promote your child’s decoding, blending and fluency. Children should read their book fully 3 times at home before it is changed in school. This is to develop fluency and understanding of the text. Books are closely matched to your child’s phonic knowledge. Please record in your child’s reading record each time you read together at home so that your child’s teacher knows what is going well and what needs a little more work.

Love for reading

We appreciate that the books do not provide an opportunity to explore lots of new vocabulary and an opportunity to immerse yourself in a range of stories. Therefore, we urge you to continue to share a bedtime story a day with your child. Check out our ‘Love to Read’ page for more information.

How to support at home

You can have lots of fun playing phonic games with your child. Below are some games you could play at home:

I spy – give initial sound based on pronunciation of sound initially (eg: something beginning with sssss)

Bingo - reading and spelling words on a bingo board.  Your child could read or spell different words and win bingo if they can read or spell words correctly.

Word hunt - finding words and keywords hidden around your home.

Matching pairs - finding and reading matching words. Word cards could be hidden for your child to find. 

Silly voices - say sounds in a high, low, happy or grumpy voice.

'Skip to it!' - run, jump, hop or skip to a certain word.

'Fishing for phonics' - 'fish' for words written on ping pong balls. The balls could be in the bath or hidden in the house. Your child could use a net to try and catch the balls.

Sing an alphabet song -  have lots of fun learning an alphabet song. Then point to a letter and ask your child to tell you its letter name and sound.

Scavenger hunt – search for new sound on road signs, magazines, books, around the house

Instructions in robot talk – encourages blending by giving instructions (eg: pass the p-i-g, time for a b-a-th)

Phonics games websites

www.topmarks.co.uk

www.phonicsbloom.com

www.phonicsplay.co.uk