Phonics is a way of teaching children to read and write. Watch this fun animation about phonics and understand the key aspects of learning to read using phonics. At Red Rose Primary School, we are committed to the delivery of excellence in the teaching of Phonics. We aim to develop each child so that they are able to read fluently and confidently as well as enriching their vocabulary and developing a love of reading. The Floppy’s Phonics programme teaches the letter/s-sound correspondences of the English alphabetic code explicitly and comprehensively for reading and spelling. It includes the characters of Floppy the dog, Biff, Chip and Kipper and their family and friends, which engages children fully for the phonics teaching & learning, vocabulary enrichment and language comprehension Initially children's listening skills are developed through the use of music, environmental sounds and rhyme. During their journey through the Reception and Key Stage 1 they are taught the 44 phonemes (sounds) that make up all the sounds required for reading and spelling. These phonemes include those made by just one letter 'b as in bed' and those that are made by two 'ai as in rain or three letters 'igh as in high'. Children are taught the key skills of blending and segmenting to be able to read and write. As the children grow in confidence and experience, they are introduced to alternative ways of representing the same sound, eg 'ee' can be represented as 'ee as in bee', 'ea as in tea', 'e-e as in theme' and 'e as in we'. They also learn when to apply simple spelling rules and use verbs in the correct tense. We ensure that our teaching of phonics is rigorous, structured and enjoyable. In Reception to Year 2, children have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they are introduced to new phonemes, explore, practise and revise previous learning and have plenty of opportunities to apply the knowledge they have. It is very important that children are exposed to the correct terminology so they understand correctly what they are learning and can articulate where they are struggling. All staff understand and use the following terminology with children when teaching.
In addition to the specific terminology used, children are also exposed to a range of blending and oral segmenting core strategies to develop their understanding of phonemes and graphemes. Strategies will be modelled by teaching staff and opportunities provided for children to practise these skills independently to secure their knowledge.
Children can access the Floppy’s Phonics sound books and activities that they have looked at in class online through the Oxford Owl website. Your child has their class login for this in their home school diary. Once you have logged in, you will see a tab for the Floppy’s Phonics resources. Further information is on this document. The national phonics screening check is a short, statutory assessment to ensure that children are making sufficient progress in phonics skills to read words and are on track to become fluent readers, who can enjoy reading for pleasure. All Year 1 pupils will take the phonics screening check in June. Any Year 2 child who did not pass their screening in Year 1 will have the opportunity to retake this at the same time. The check comprises a list of 40 words, which are made up of real and pseudo words. Within school, children know these pseudo words as alien or nonsense words. When children complete the phonics screening check, they will read these words one-to-one with their teacher in a quiet setting. They can use all the segmenting and blending skills they have learnt in school. The words are presented as a booklet with up to 4 words per page and cover the graphemes covered throughout Reception and Year 1. The pseudo words will be presented with a colourful picture of an alien. Yes, you will find out your child’s results as part of their end of year report to parents. Following the phonics screening check, the results are used to identify which children will need further support decoding. The official pass mark has not been released for the 2022 check yet; however, in 2021, this was 32 out of 40. If your child does not meet the expected standard, then they will be provided with additional support to close any gaps in learning and will retake the assessment in Year 2. If you have any questions or queries regarding the phonics screening check, please contact your child’s pastoral class teacher in the first instance who will endeavour to answer your query as quickly as possible. Should you feel the need to discuss this further, please contact Mrs Holt. 
To deliver phonics, we use the Floppy’s Phonics programme. This programme is a content-rich systematic synthetic phonics programme that allows for a two-pronged approach to teaching phonics. It allows for a focused phonics provision along with integration and sustained support in the wider curriculum.
Phoneme/ Sound The smallest identifiable sound of speech.
Grapheme / Code The letter/s used to represent the sound.
Digraph A phoneme represented by 2 letters (e.g. ch, sh, oa, ay)
Trigraph A phoneme represented by 3 letters (e.g. igh, ear)
Split Digraph Two letters that represent one phoneme but are split by another letter (e.g. a-e in cake)
Blending When reading a word, identify the graphemes in the word and say the corresponding sounds in order to hear the word as a whole. E.g. read sh – o – p = shop
Segmenting When spelling a word, break it down into the sounds you hear and write the grapheme for each identified sound. E.g. say shop = writing sh – o – p
Decode Breaking a word down into sounds to be able to read it.
Encode Breaking a word down into sounds to be able to spell it.
Sight words These are common or high frequency words with unusual spelling rules which means they can’t be decoded easily. Children will learn to recognise these words by sight and be able to recall them with automaticity.
Helpful words These are a list of words that the children will frequently encounter in their reading as well as words that are covered as part of the Floppy’s Phonics Helpful Words Poster.
Oral segmenting Blending Alphabetic code flashcards Cumulative Text
Tally sounds identified through the spoken words to thumb and fingers of the left hand, palm facing Pointing finger to track under the graphemes all through the printed word Flashcards using the alphabetic code
What is the phonics screening check?When does the phonics screening take place?
How is the phonics screening check structured?Will I find out my child’s results?
Contact
