'Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and we will change everything.'

Jeanette Winterson

Phonics

Intent

At St Thomas’ Primary Academy, we believe Phonics is a vital and important element that ensures children have a strong foundation to prepare them for the early stages of reading and ignite their passion to learn and achieve. This will continue to be nurtured throughout their time at school, embedded in all areas of learning to open a wide range of opportunities for the future. Through stimulating and fast paced lessons, children will follow the systematic and structured approach of Read, Write Inc, learning to read and write new phonemes and graphemes alongside story telling and role play. Stories will be closely matched to individual stages of learning and this will provide successful steps to embed new vocabulary, develop oracy and create strong connections to the wider world.

Implementation- 

In Reception and Key Stage 1, children receive daily phonics and Read Write Inc time. Research shows that phonics is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. In phonics sessions they are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes;
• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make - such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’; and
• blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.

Children can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read. At St Thomas' we use Read Write Inc to promote a systematic approach to learning phonics and spelling throughout the whole school.

In Year One, children take part in a phonics screening check. This check is designed to confirm whether pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It will identify pupils who need extra support to improve their decoding skills. The check consists of 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words that a pupil reads aloud to the teacher.

Please use the link below to find more information about the Phonics Screening Check and to listen to the 44 sounds spoken aloud and in example words.

Impact

Here at St Thomas' Primary Academy, children will have a secure knowledge of phonics which will enable them to become confident and fluent readers. This will allow children to develop their knowledge and skills across all subjects within the Curriculum and instil a passion for learning and reading. This will encourage children to follow their chosen career path and be successful which will instil hope for those and others and `live life to its fullest.` 

Phonics Help 

If you would like to find out more information on the Read Write Inc Phonics programme and how it is implemented across EYFS and Key Stage 1, please watch the Phonics workshops that can be found on our video resource centre. 

https://st-thomas-cofe-boston.primarysite.media/media/welcome-to-our-reading-workshop