Reading and Phonics at St Margaret's
Phonics
At St Margaret’s we use a validated systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme called Bug Club Phonics to teach phonics. The Bug Club Phonics programme follows the teaching sequence of letters and sounds and lessons are structured in the same way each day with an introduction, revisit, teach, practise and apply element to every session, providing the children with consistent routines that they can become familiar with. The scheme follows a programme where children are taught the phonemes (smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (number of letters that represent a sound in a word) through a series of phases.
Each phonics lesson reviews previous sounds taught and then introduces a new sound with an action video to help children remember and retain the phoneme. The children learn how this is used in a variety of words, are taught how to segment the sounds and then blend them to read a word and then apply this understanding to spelling words. Nonsense words (alien words) are also taught as part of the programme which helps ensure our children are ready for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check.
Throughout the programme, teachers supplement the provided materials and embed the taught skills through a range of activities that they have identified to be successful. The programme is highly interactive and uses CBeebies videos, action for sounds videos, interactive games and captivating reading through online eBooks. This helps to secure essential phonic knowledge and skills as well as ensuring the lessons are fun, interactive and engaging.
On entry into school, parents of EYFS pupils are invited to attend meetings to understand the phonics programme and the support available for them for reading and spelling at home. Communication is maintained throughout KS1 using home-school diaries with specific phonic guidance related to the current reading book. All children are encouraged to read at home with an adult on a regular basis. Children have access to books matched to their phonic/reading ability until children become fluent readers. Through the engaging online reading world, which strengthens home school links, children can also access allocated, levelled Bug Club eBooks online to read both at school and at home.
EYFS
Phonics is taught to the children in EYFS from day one when they start school, this is through Phase 1 activities, poetry, rhyming, storytelling and singing before starting formal Phase 2 lessons after the EYFS baseline has taken place.
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Autumn 1 – Weeks 1-3 Phase 1 consolidation |
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Autumn 1 Week 3-end Phase 2 |
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Autumn 2 Begin with assessment of Phase 2 before beginning Phase 3 |
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Spring 1 Begin with assessment of Phase 3; consolidation of Phase 3 with focus on handwriting |
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Summer 1 Assessment and consolidation of Phase 4 |
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Summer 2 Targeted consolidation across Phase 3/4 using assessment data |
Year 1
At the beginning of Year 1, the children consolidate their learning from the end of EYFS by revisiting the Phase 4 sequence where they also have the opportunity to apply their previously learnt Phase 2 and 3 knowledge. Daily sessions of phonics last up to 30 minutes. Children then progress to Phase 5 in Autumn 2 where they learn a set of new graphemes, alternative pronunciations for graphemes already known and alternative spellings for phonemes.
Year 2
Phase 5 phonics teaching is revised at the start of Year 2 before moving onto learning spelling rules and patterns. Within Phase 5, children broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes to apply in their reading and writing. They will learn to read words with alternative pronunciation of graphemes and words with two and three syllables. Children will learn to choose the appropriate grapheme when writing words and learn to write two-syllable words, three-syllable words and polysyllabic words.
Phase 6 completes children's phonics teaching. As they are becoming fluent readers and more accurate spellers, they learn more spelling patterns such as the use of prefixes and suffixes; contracted forms of words, e.g. can’t and won’t; and other words in common usage such as days of the week. At this stage, children can read many words automatically and are now reading for pleasure and reading to learn, rather than learning to read. They can decode words quickly and silently and only need to sound out longer or more unfamiliar words.
KS2
For any children who do not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1, or where teachers have identified gaps in children’s phonic knowledge, we use the Rapid Phonics programme. Rapid Phonics is designed as an intervention to fill the gaps for children in Year 2 to Year 6. This unique programme includes snappy lessons, lively age-appropriate books, and fantastic interactive activities to build children’s confidence and fluency, to reinforce the basics of phonics in small, manageable steps to increase children’s confidence in reading and spelling using phonics.
We use:
- Phonics Bug in EYFS
- Phonics Bug in Year 1 and 2
- Phonics Bug is also used higher up the school where required.
Reading at Home
One of the biggest factors which can help pupils to develop all round academic ability is to share quality reading time with an adult. The guide in the downloads below may be useful to achieve this.
The reading books the children take home work alongside the phonics scheme used in school. The children will read books which are phonics based and wholly decodable. As they progress with their phonics they will progress through the phonic stages. We have a consistent phonic reading scheme to keep the children engaged and motivated to read. We use the Pearson’s Phonics Bug series of books. The children will be given books to take home each week. If you wish to read extra books with your child, you can also access e-books with Pearson’s Phonics Bug Independent. There is a huge range of books here to read with your child which progresses up to Lime level. In order to access these books, please follow the link below.
Please click here to access your e-book account
Downloads
The booklets below will give you more information which may support your child’s learning:
Reading after phonics
When the children have consolidated the graphemes covered in each stage of reading books, they will advance to reading books within the scheme which cover a range of genres in order to widen their reading experience and help to develop their fluency and comprehension skills.
Once children have become fluent readers with good comprehension skills, they will then be able to progress onto our ‘Reading Spine’ which are a range of fiction and non-fiction books that have been carefully chosen for each year group. This is designed to develop their reading experience as they move through the school and introduce them to books that they might not choose for themselves. They will also be able to regularly borrow a book from the school library which has a wide range of books to suit all interests and ability levels.
By providing them with rich and varied reading opportunities, we hope to help the children become ‘readers’ who wish to read for pleasure independently.
Reading Progression Through School
Throughout their time at St. Margaret’s, we want the children to experience a wide range of texts. Books have been carefully selected so that they are able to experience a range of genres, cultures and themes. We have also tried to choose books that they are unlikely to have encountered at home so that they are able to use prediction skills and enjoy the excitement of a book that they have never read before. These texts are shared with the children and are used to help inspire discussion and as a prompt for writing.
Book Lists and Recommendations
We also have recommended book lists that are appropriate for each year group in the guides below:
These links also take you to some excellent websites which provide useful guidance about the best new books and book recommendations organised by genre
- https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/our-recommendations/best-new-books/
- https://www.booksfortopics.com/year-5
We would also encourage children to use their local library for books. You can also access online books through your local library service through using the Borrow Box app. This provides free access to a huge range of fiction and non -fiction books for a range of ages.
