Phonics

At Cheslyn Hay Primary School, we believe that reading and writing is an essential life skill and are dedicated to enabling out children to become enthused, engaged and successful lifelong readers and writes. To support this we use Monster Phonics and practice across EYFS, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 for those children requiring additional phonic support.

We teach discrete daily phonic sessions using the Monster Phonics Program which follows Letters & Sounds and complies for the DFE guidelines in the teaching and learning of phonics and the KS1 spelling curriculum. Monster Phonics is a fun way to teach Systematic Synthetic Phonics using a multi-sensory approach.Each coloured grapheme is paired with a monster character that makes the same sound to give audio-visual prompts that help children 'see' each sound within a word and pronounce it correctly.

Children learn new phonemes, improve their ability to segment and blend sounds, and their ability to apply this knowledge into their reading and writing. In practice, children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and are taught how to blend these sounds to decode (read) words.

Phase 1 (Typically pre nursery and nursery)

Teaching through short guided activities, child initiated learning and environmental provision in the Nursery focusing on sound discrimination and the 7 aspects outlined in Letters and Sounds for phase 1. Oral segmenting and blending are encouraged.

Reception Term 1

Term 1 teaches Phases 2 and the initial part of Phase 3 (letters and sounds). Children have a daily discrete 20 minute phonics session. They will learn 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. They also cover blending sounds to help read words and also segmenting words into their separate sounds. Children also learn a set of Tricky words. The children are streamed into groups to ensure they are reaching their full potential and are given support as needed. Reception High Frequency Words

(HFW) are also taught with a focus on stories to highlight graphemes and activities including art, role play, simple reading and writing tasks, phonics games and music.

Reception Term 2

Term 2 completes the teaching of phase 3 graphemes. It also continues to develop children’s knowledge of HFWs and also introduces more of them. Story books are an essential part of this learning. Term 2 and 3 use well-known repetitive traditional stories, action songs and games to develop reading and writing in sentences. The aim is to provide real and meaningful contexts for practicing blending and segmenting of CVC, CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC and 2 syllable words and HFW.

Reception Term 3

Term 3 focuses on the skills of blending and segmenting learnt graphemes to read and spell CVC+ combinations. This includes learning to blend and segment 3 adjacent consonants to read and spell CCC onset words. Children learn to read and write captions and sentences, and consolidates previous learning

Another set of tricky words are taught to the children. There are no new grapheme-phoneme correspondences during this phase. Children learn to blend and segment longer words with adjacent consonants and develop their reading and fluency skills.

Year 1 Term 1 (typically L&S Phase 5)

Children have a daily discrete phonics session for up to 20 minutes in differentiated groups to ensure children are reaching their full potential. Term 1 of Year 1 teaches National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes, all of the Year 1 CEWs and the first 100 HFWs. The addition of suffixes ed, s/es, ing, er and est (with no change to the root word) is introduced in specific spelling lessons and continues to be taught and reinforced in grapheme lessons. The children will learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, as well as alternative pronunciations of the graphemes they already know. Eg ‘ee’ and ‘ea’. They are also taught a final set of tricky words. Children to be ready for the end of year Phonics Screening Test which takes place in June of each academic year.

Year 1 Term 2

All National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes are taught by Week 9 of Term 2. At this point, revision lessons commence. The daily activities set out in the Revision Worksheets check for gaps in learning, further reinforce word lists, practice grammatical rules and dictation. Videos and PowerPoints from Term 1 reinforce word

lists and rules. Term 2 teaches the remainder of the National Curriculum Year 1 graphemes, the next 200 HFWs, the prefix un and the k before e, i and y rule. All of the first 300 HFWs have been taught by the end of this term.

Year 1 Term 3

Term 3 begins with the preparation for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, using real and nonsense word reading activities and a mock phonics screen. The remainder of the term focuses on the revision of the Year 1 graphemes. Spelling rules, HFWs and CEWs are recapped in the last 3 weeks. Children to be ready for the end of year Phonics Screening Test which takes place in June of each academic year.

Year 2 Term 1 (Typically Phase 6)

Children are taught a daily spelling session of up to 30 minutes. During this phase the children focus on spelling and spelling rules. This will include suffixes and prefixes as well as dropping letters from words. Children will continue to develop fluency in their reading, and will focus on applying their phonic knowledge in their writing.

Term 1 teaches all National Curriculum Year 2 graphemes, the Year 2 CEWs and the majority of the spelling rules, including the rules for adding vowel suffixes: the drop e, double consonant and y to an i rule. Homophones/near homophone are also taught in Term 1

Year 2 Term 2

Term 2 completes the teaching of spelling rules with a focus on consonant suffixes, contractions and possessive apostrophes. After a formative assessment, grapheme revision lessons commence. The daily activities set out in the Worksheet check for gaps in learning, further reinforce word lists, practise grammatical rules and dictation. Videos and PowerPoints from Term 1 reinforce word lists and rules. The weekly plan for each grapheme culminates in a writing task that encourages children to use their phonics and grammatical knowledge in their free writing.

Year 2 Term 3

Term 3 completes the revision of the National Curriculum Year 2 graphemes. The focus for the remaining 4 weeks is on spelling rules and CEWs with opportunities to practise reinforcement activities.

Throughout Early Years and Key Stage One, children are taught in small and focussed groups to target their specific needs for Phonics, alongside children of the same ability. Teachers and Teaching and Learning Assistants regularly assess the children in their so that all planning meets the needs of the children in that group, therefore ensuring all children are confident before moving onto a new phonics phase.