Phonics

Here at Ivington C of E Primary and Pre-school we follow the Read Write Inc. Phonics scheme of learning. All children are taught to use Fred Talk to segment and blend words.

Every dedicated phonics teaching space has the same resources to ensure all children are having phonics taught in the same way.

We make phonics lively and fun! We embed rules and routines that are uniform across all phonics groups. This means the children can quickly settle into a new phonics group. We support children through intervention in the afternoons to ensure they keep up with the phonics program. In KS2 we continue to develop our phonics knowledge through interventions.

Intent

Our Aims Are to Ensure Children:

• Become confident, accurate readers.
• Foster a love of reading from an early age and the way we teach phonics is a key part of this.
• Have the best start in their reading journey by exposing them to a variety of high-quality texts and reading resources.
• Use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately.
• At the end of EYFS pupils will: Read and understand simple sentences.
• Read some common irregular words.
• By the end of Key Stage 1 pupils will :
• Be able to sound and blend unfamiliar printed words quickly and accurately using the phonic knowledge and skills that they have already learnt.
• Re-read books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.

As a School we ensure:

• Adults follow, a rigorous phonics program that ensures all children make good progress.
• Children who are finding phonics tricky, have daily targeted one-to-one interventions.
• Adults have regular training.
• We encourage parents to be as involved as possible in their child’s phonics journey. We ensure all parents are equipped with phonics knowledge so that they can support their child’s reading at the early stages.

Implementation 

All children in Reception and KS1 receive a daily 30-minute phonics lesson taught in a dedicated phonics teaching space.

• Children are assessed every 6 weeks and groups are organised accordingly.
• During their phonics session children will learn sounds, blend and segment words, read a variety of texts and learn to spell words.
• Children are taught to segment and blend real and alien words, this ensures they can phonetical read any word.
• All children will read a decodable phonics text match to their ability in their daily phonics session. As well as this, they will take the same text home as their home phonics reading book.
• Once children complete the phonics program, they move on to Language and Literacy.
• Children will be given a book banded book alongside their RWI book to read at home.
• All adults use positive praise throughout the phonics lesson to enthuse children and ensure they become confident readers.
• They take responsibility for the phonics teaching of the children in their group, ensuring they communicate with other teaching staff any difficulties or successes the children have.
• Children are assessed every 6 weeks to track their progress.
• This information, alongside daily observations of teaching staff, is used to ensure all children are supported through extra keep up sessions to revise areas of learning where they have gaps.

Challenge

• Children are assessed every 6 weeks to track their progress.
• This information, alongside daily observations of teaching staff, is used to ensure all children are above age expected are given appropriate challenge.
• Due to our rigorous assessment system all children are placed at a level that ensure they can access the text as well as being given the appropriate level of challenge.
• Level of challenge is provided through extended vocabulary and sounds included in the text as well as extended levels of comprehension.
• SEN/EAL children or children that are not making good levels of progress will be monitored closely through our six weekly assessment.
• Children who are not making expected progress will receive one-to-one catch up sessions at any time during the year to ensure they can make the best possible progress.
• Seating children alongside good role models to support one another.
• Frequent reinforcement and revisiting to help consolidate learning from previous lessons.
• We provide visual/practical prompts.
• Adults wear “Pinnys” around school to continue consolidation throughout the day. Adults have relevant words/sounds in them which they hold up when the children least expect.

Impact

• Each RWI lesson is rigorous, fun and engaging.
• Adults follow the same plan in each group; this ensures the children know what is expected of them, develops confidence and routines.

• In both KS1 and KS2 the level of expectations for all children are clear. Language such as my turn-your turn, 1,2,3 go, stop signal, magnetic eyes is used.
• The use of Read, Write Inc. Terms such as, Fred talk, Fred in your head, special friends, red words, green words, alien words.
• All children fully engaged in their learning because of the passion and enthusiasm of the staff delivering.
• Confident readers who are well equipped to have a go at a tricky text.
• Children who enjoy reading and are keen to share this enjoyment with others.
• Children who can uses their phonics knowledge to help them segment and blend words when reading a spelling.
• Adults listen to all children read daily, in RWI sessions.
• Targeted children are read with daily.
• Constant daily assessment for learning is shared by the phonics group teacher with the member of staff teaching those children.
• Six weekly assessments take place for all children on the phonics program.

This is the impact of the Phonics teaching in Our School:

• All children have an enjoyment of reading
• .Children are confident in their ability to read familiar and unfamiliar texts and show the resilience to have a go.
• By the end of KS1 all children have a solid phonic knowledge that will enable them to develop their reading and spelling as they progress through KS2.
• Children are equipped with the tools they need to help them spell and read a variety of simple and tricky words.
• The children meeting the required pass rate in the phonics screening test at the end of year 1 is at least at national and the same for those who take the phonics re-sit in Year 2.