PHONICS

The Vision For Our Curriculum

 At Brill Primary School, we believe that all children are entitled to learn to read and write so as to be ready for the challenge of today and prepared for tomorrow. This is achieved through a systematic teaching and learning approach to phonics which is delivered through daily, streamed, adult-led, small-group sessions. This is supported in class via a language-enriched environment, use of levelled and fully decodable reading books and exploration of relevant and useful spelling words at home and school. These early-reading and writing skills that are nurtured from the beginning of EYFS will equip them for the rest of their lives. 

INTENT

At Brill Primary School, we teach reading and writing through the Bug Club Phonics programme. Every day, at 9am, children are engaged in a highly focussed and purposeful phonics session. These sessions are delivered in small, streamed groups across foundation and key stage one (apart from the first term of EYFS, when a whole-class approach is more effective and appropriate for the very start of school). Our phonics sessions are consistent, thorough and effective. In each session, children revisit their previous learning, are taught new skills, and practise and apply what they have learned. 

IMPLEMENTATION

At Brill Primary School, children are taught to read using phonics. Pupils are also taught a range of ‘tricky words’ which cannot be decoded using phonics. In this way they gradually develop a bank of vocabulary they know by sight. Children are also exposed to a wide range of engaging, enriching reading material to develop their vocabulary, widen their experiences and excite and inspire our children to become life-long readers. 

Phonics lessons are taught every day in Reception and Key Stage One and each day the children learn or revise a new sound or spelling pattern.  At the start of EYFS, children continue to build upon listening activities and are introduced to the start of systematic phonic work. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence is introduced. Children are taught how to decode and blend to enable them to read new words. They are taught how to form letters correctly and learn to spell through the process of segmenting whole words and by selecting letters to represent those phonemes. We continue to use the Bug Club programme throughout Year 1 and 2, working systematically through the different phases. Children will be introduced to alternate spellings of phonemes they have learnt previously and learn strategies to decode two and three syllable words. The spelling of tricky words is taught continuously throughout the phases. Other reading strategies, such as whole-word reading approach, may also be introduced if required and additional targeted phonics support to secure their learning may be introduced in Key Stage One. At the early stages of reading development, the children initially use books without text and progress to fully decodable books that are closely linked to the phonics sounds or phase that they are learning. 

IMPACT

Our children make rapid progress from their start point in reading and writing. They leave EYFS equipped with the fundamental skills of learning to read and write and build on this knowledge throughout Year 1 and Year 2. By the end of Year 1, they should have a secure understanding of the phonic sounds to enable them to achieve highly in their Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. Ultimately, as children become more secure in their phonic knowledge, reading evolves from learning to read, to reading for pleasure, fluency and knowledge.  

Reading and Phonics Information Evening