Our Teaching of Phonics
Phonics at New Close is taught through Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. We follow Letters and Sounds, which is designed to help teachers and practitioners teach children what sounds the different letters make and how to blend them and segment them for reading and writing.
We support our phonics teaching with the use of Jolly Phonics songs and actions.
We support our letter formation with the use of Read Write Inc pictures and rhymes. In Reception and Year 1 we focus on forming letters correctly- starting in the right place, going the right direction and placing it in the right spot on the line. When the child is ready, they will begin to look at blends and joining their letters together. This will happen towards the end of Year 1 and in Year 2
Below is an overview of what each child should be doing by the end of each phase
By the end of Phase 2 children should:
say each of the sounds using the action to support them
match the sound to the letter
be beginning to write the letters
orally blend and segment CVC words
be able to blend and segment in order to read and write CVC and VC words such as in, at, cat, pin, sock, log
be able to blend ‘alien’ CVC words such as dis, nam, ret, lom
be able to read the tricky words I, the, to, no, go, into
be beginning to segment CVC words and write the sounds in order
By the end of Phase 3 children should:
be able to say the sounds for all phase 2 and phase 3 letters
match the sound to the letter for phase 2 and phase 3 sounds
be able to blend CVC words containing phase 2 sounds and the phase 3 ‘friendly sounds’ (oa, ai, ng, oi). These words would include rock, boat, ship, bang
be able to segment and write CVC words containing phase 2 and phase 3 sounds
be able to read the tricky words he, she, we, me, be, was, you, they, all, are, my, her
be able to spell the tricky words from phase 2 I, the, to, no, go, into
be able to write the letters from phase 2 with correct formation and have a good attempt at the phase 3 letters
By the end of Phase 4 children should:
be able to say and match all of the phase 2 and 3 sounds confidently
be able to blend CCVC (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) and CVCC words containing both phase 2 and 3 sounds confidently. For example chin, shop, wish, with
be making good attempts at segmenting CCVC and CVCC words using their knowledge of phase 2 and 3 sounds
be able to read the tricky words said, have, like, so, do, come, some, were, there, little, one, when, out, what
be able to write the phase 3 tricky words he, she, we, be, me, was, you, they, all, are, my, her
be able to form all letters correctly- starting in the correct place, going in the right direction, positioning it correctly on the line.
By the end of Phase 5 children should:
give the sound when shown any grapheme that has been taught; for any given sound, write the common graphemes
apply phonic knowledge and skill as the prime approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words that are not completely decodable
read and spell phonically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words
read automatically all the words in the list of 100 high-frequency words
accurately spell most of the words in the list of 100 high-frequency words; form each letter correctly
Here are some links for things you may find helpful
Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are regularly assessed in phonics. Those children who have not met the requirements at the end of Year 2 continue to be taught and assessed in Phonics in Year 3 and beyond until they meet the requirements.
There is a National Year 1 Phonics Screening Test applied in June in Year 1.
Below there are some useful links to help with Phonics