What does phonics look like at Kettlefields Primary School?

The children follow the Government approved 'Twinkl' phonics programme daily, which starts in the foundation stage and progresses through Key Stage 1. The emphasis is to make phonics a fun and memorable experience where the children learn in a variety of different ways using interactive and practical games and activities alongside written tasks, with a focus on a specific phoneme, diagraph, trigraph or spelling rule. These activities take place both indoors and where possible outdoors. The children also read books in a group that are aligned to the phonics sounds they are learning. These books are also sent home to consolidate the learning in class.

In year 2 there is an increased focus on grammar and spelling, whilst also revising prior learning to ensure there are no gaps in knowledge. In Year 1 the children sit the Phonics Screening Check, which is a statutory assessment and if the required standard is not met, the children resit the test in Year 2. 

The children are tracked and monitored every half term and teacher and teaching assistants support children to plug any gaps in understanding and knowledge. 

Please see the video below to help you with how enunciate each phoneme and our slideshow for images of what phonics looks like in school. 

So, what is phonics?

Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read and spell words.

In their phonics lessons the children are taught 3 main things:

GPCs

The children are taught GPCs, which stands for grapheme phoneme correspondences. This means that they are taught all of the phonemes in the English language and ways of writing them down. These sounds are taught in a particular order through phases of learning (Phase 1 - 6), starting with s, a, t, p. 

Blending

Children are taught to blend by saying the sounds that make up a word and merging them together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is essential when they are learning to read. 

Segmenting

Children are also taught to segment. This is almost the opposite of blending when children are able to say a word and then break it up into phonemes. This skill is vital to support children with spelling words. 

Useful websites to support your child's learning