“As Jesus is the light of the world, we shine to show His light and love.”

Intent

At St Nicholas CE Primary Academy, we value reading as a key life skill, and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. We know that children need to be taught the key skills of segmenting and blending to enable them to become fluent readers who can go on to 'read to learn'. We also value and encourage the pupils to read for enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills.

 

Implementation

 

 

At St Nicholas Primary Academy our early readers follow the Letters and Sounds synthetic phonics programme.  As a school we subscribe to Phonics Play and use the planning and interactive materials to enliven the curriculum.

 

The six phases of the Letters and Sounds document provides a structure for teachers to follow and plan children’s progression from, although the boundaries between the phases are not fixed, allowing teachers to plan across the phases depending on the class needs. Teachers’ assessment of individual children will inform the rate at which their children are able to progress through the phases and adapt the pace accordingly.

It is important that the five phases are embedded and the children have a sound understanding of the key knowledge and skills before the final sixth phase is introduced. Year 2 teachers will then introduce phase 6 through the Read, Write, Inc. spelling programme.

 

Daily Teaching:

Each child will benefit from:

• A daily, discrete phonics session.
• Fluid groupings which change according to children’s progress.
• Highly trained practitioners leading fun, interactive and effective sessions.
• Effective assessments which track children’s achievement and attainment over time.
• The opportunity to work across an age phase rather than across a year group.

 

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One and Two. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1. However, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments.

Parent Support

We appreciate phonics can be a daunting world with lots of unusual vocabulary that children use in their lessons.  Please take your time to view the videos below to find more out about synthetic phonics.

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