Phonics

At Cottam Primary, phonics is taught daily to all children across Early Years and Key Stage One (and for those children who require continuity of Phonics provision in Key Stage 2). We follow the Lancashire Red Rose Letters and Sounds systematic, synthetic phonics planning programme.

What is phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that individual letters make

• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make-such as 'sh' or 'oo'

• blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word

Children can then use this knowledge to 'decode' new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.

The children are taught to read words by blending, which means pushing all the sounds together to make a word.  The children are taught to spell words by segmenting, which means sounding out words and writing down the sounds they can hear.

By the end of Reception children are expected to be secure in Phase Three. By the end of Year One children are expected to be secure in Phase Five. When finishing Key Stage One, most children at Cottam will have progressed from exploring letters and sounds to exploring spelling rules and patterns. 

Why phonics?

Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way-starting with the easiest sounds and progressing to the most complex-it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It is particularly helpful for children aged 5 to 7 years old. Almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics will learn the skills that they need to tackle new words. Children can go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and read for enjoyment (Department for Education).

Phonics Phases 

The children are taught in smaller groups organised by their Phonic phase.

They are assessed informally throughout the year to ensure they are secure in their phase before moving on.

Phase One

Supports the importance of speaking and listening and develops children’s discrimination of sounds, including letter sounds.

Phase Two

The children learn to pronounce the sounds themselves in response to letters, before blending them. This leads to them being able to read simple words and captions.

Letters: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Tricky Words: the, to, I, no, go

Phase Three

Completes the teaching of the alphabet and moves on to sounds represented by more than one letter. The children will learn letter names and how to read and spell some tricky words.

Letters: j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu, ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Tricky Words: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, they, her, all, are

Phase Four

The children learn to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants.

Tricky Words: said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do, when, out, what

Phase Five

The children broaden their knowledge of sounds for use in reading and spelling. They will begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.

Sounds: ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au, ey, a_e, i_e, u_e, o_e

Tricky Words: oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked

What strategies can children use to help with blending and segmenting?

Blending Words to Read

At Cottam we teach children to draw and press 'sound buttons'.

A small dot is used for a grapheme and a longer line is used to represent the diagraph or trigraph.

Blending Polysyllabic Words

When reading words with more than one syllable, children are taught to draw sound buttons before breaking the word up into syllables. They are encouraged to then build and blend the first syllable then the second syllable before combing the two parts to read the word.  

Reading a sentence

When reading sentences, children sound out unfamiliar words using the strategies taught during phonic sessions. Once a word has been sounded out, children are encouraged to return to the beginning of the sentence and reread it to ensure they understand what has been read. 

Segmenting Words

At Cottam we teach the children to use 'phonic fingers' to support their segmenting skills. Children are encouraged to 'tap' a single finger onto their chin to represent the first phoneme heard in the word. They then 'tap' a second finger on their chin for the next phoneme and so on before saying the complete word and 'swiping' all fingers across their chin whilst saying the complete word. 

Segmenting Polysyllabic Words

When writing words with more than one syllable children are taught to first break the word up into each syllable. They segment the first syllable using phonic fingers, record the phonemes down before segmenting the second syllable in the same way.