Phonics

We have adopted Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) as our chosen Phonics programme to support our children with early reading. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words.

Children begin learning Phonics from the very start of Reception and it is explicitly taught every day during a dedicated slot on the timetable. Throughout the day, children will continue to use Phonics and will have many opportunities to practise their reading. Children continue daily Phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers.

At the same time children develop a pleasure in books and language acquiring the skills they need to become independent readers and writers.

Supporting reading at home.

·         We ask that you read the decodable text provided, this means that children should be able to read these books as they already know the code contained within the book.

·         We only use pure sounds when decoding words (no ‘uh’ after the sound)

·         We want children to practise reading their book 3/4 times across the week working on these skills:

-          Decode – sounding out and blending to read the word.

-         Fluency – reading words with less obvious decoding.

-         Expression – using intonation and expression to bring the text to life!

Please use the videos below to help with accurate pronunciation of sounds:

Phase 2: https://vimeo.com/641445921/9382cf6db0

Phase 3: https://vimeo.com/642342878/59d233684c

Phase 5: Phase 5 Pronunciation (vimeo.com)

More information about Essential Letters and Sounds can be found here: https://essentiallettersandsounds.org/