Our learning in phonics is central to our EYFS and KS1 classes and it underpins and supports all the work we do to encourage our children to read fluently and have a love of books and reading.  The children from Pre-school through to Year 2 are taught a systematic phonics programme to help them to decode, segment and blend words using blocks of sounds (phonemes) and to write these sounds (graphemes).  The children will sit a statutory phonics screening test in Year 1 Summer term to assess their progress again National standards.

In school we want our children to find their daily 20-minute phonics sessions fun and engaging, so we use a wide range of different kinds of activities to help our children excel in this area of learning.  The phonics teaching is split into different phases from 1 - 6 and your child will move progressively through these phases as they move through Pre-school to Reception and then into Year 1 and 2.  Our work is based on a range of different resources and schemes but our main schemes are:

• Jolly phonics (used primarily in EYFS)
• Letters and sounds teaching using the LCP support materials
• Phonics Bug (from Pearson)
• No-nonsense spelling (to teach Phase 6 phonics, used in Year 2)

Our phonics learning is supported by our use of Bug Club reading books,  Floppy's phonics and Phonics Bug reading books.  A whole range of different resources are used to teach phonics and we especially like to make our learning active, even running many of our sessions outdoors!  Ask your class teacher, attend one of our open phonics sessions/parental training sessions (see newsletter for details)  or come and see Mrs Gow if you would like any further information about how to help your child with phonics at home.