Phonics and Reading in Key Stage 1
At Frith Manor Primary School we use the Letters and Sounds Phonics Programme for all of our phonics teaching.
There are six overlapping phases. The table below is a summary based on the Letters and Sounds guidance for Practioners and Teachers. Here is a great website where you can print your own flashcards and words for free, visit the Letters and Sounds resources website.
Phase |
Year Group |
Phonic Knowledge & Skills |
Phase One |
Nursery/Reception |
Activities are divided into seven aspects, including environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting. |
Phase Two |
Reception |
Learning 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. Blending sounds together to make words. Segmenting words into their separate sounds. Beginning to read simple captions. |
Phase Three |
Reception |
The remaining 7 letters of the alphabet, one sound for each. Graphemes such as ch, oo, th representing the remaining phonemes not covered by single letters. Reading captions, sentences and questions. On completion of this phase, children will have learnt the "simple code", i.e. one grapheme for each phoneme in the English language. |
Phase Four |
Reception/Year 1 |
No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase. Children learn to blend and segment longer words with adjacent consonants, e.g. swim, clap, jump. |
Phase Five |
Year 1 |
Now we move on to the "complex code". Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, plus different ways of pronouncing the graphemes they already know. |
Phase Six |
Year 2 |
Children are taught about past tense. They learn to spell polysyllabic words. How to use suffixes, proof read their work and how to use/spell contractions. They also learn lots of spelling strategies. |
Visit the Department for Education and Skills website to view the 'Letters and Sounds - Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics' documentation.
Useful websites
www.phonicsplay.co.uk – Great for games
www.teachyourmonstertoread.com – Great for hearing the sounds and games
Pocket phonics app – Great for practicing the different phases
We use Letters & Sounds and Smart Phonics.
READING SCHEMES:
Our main reading scheme is Collins Big Cat.
We suppliment this scheme with:
- Pearsons 'Comics for Phonics'
- Oxford Reading Tree 'Songbirds''
- Rigby Rocket 'Star