Phonics

Phonics

Pupils at Green Lane Primary Academy access a systematic and synthetic approach to phonics teaching so they become enthusiastic and fluent readers. We believe that children need to not only be able to decode well but understand what they are reading to ensure they develop a love of reading for pleasure.

At Green Lane we use Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) to enable all our children to leave us with the skills of an outstanding reader and writer.

Progression from EYFS through to KS1

From the moment children enter our Nursery, children are exposed to a variety of sounds throughout the day (environmental, instrumental, oral blending) with the emphasis on talking and listening. Pre-phonics in Nursery plays a vital role in a child’s introduction to phonics. During the Summer term, the children are introduced to Phase Two, learning one letter a week, using the ELS program.

Daily phonics lessons are taught from Reception, where children will be introduced to phonemes and graphemes. Reception incorporates Phases 2 – 5 throughout the year. They will develop their ability to segment and blend phonemes together to say a word. Opportunities for reading are provided through fluency reading sessions and endless opportunities for children to practice and apply their learning in provision. Children are provided with fully decodable books that are matched to their ability.

In Year 1, these skills are built upon further, where children revisit prior phases of phonics and learning. They build upon that by learning alternative spelling and pronunciation. Daily phonics and daily one-to-one interventions are given to children to help them in their phonics. Fully decodable books are an integral part of this strategy, as children participate in fluency reading sessions where they can practice their reading skills even further not only to embed their decoding knowledge, but this also allows us to promote fluency. They are provided with books to take home that they can decode, as well as a book for pleasure.

In every session the children revisit, learn, practise, and apply new learning. During each session the children are exposed to real and pseudo words to apply their knowledge. ‘Harder to read and spell words’ appropriate to the relevant phase are also taught.

Year 2 consolidates all previous learning and expands upon it once again. Children can practice and revisit their knowledge and apply that to their reading and writing. The emphasis moves toward spellings, homophones and suffixes and we use Essential Spellings, which follows on from ELS phonics, to teach this. Children are still provided with decodable books which help revisit and maintain good phonetic knowledge. At this stage, most children should have passed their phonics screening and have good phonic knowledge to start building up their fluency. Building up fluency is a key focus alongside developing children to be confident and understanding readers.

KS2 Onwards

As children move further up school, support with phonics continues where necessary for some children. Children are still provided with books to match their fluency and understanding depending on their reading level. We use a bridging scheme to help children to transition seamlessly from decodable books to a much wider range of texts that children choose based on the genre that they are interested in.

All staff have access to quality CPD to support the teaching of phonics. Trust wide network support ensures that colleagues are well informed, well trained and confident in the teaching of phonics.

Please find information below about Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS), a DfE validated scheme, used at here at Green Lane Primary Academy.

Pronunciation Support Videos

Phase 2 pure sounds – Phase 2 Pronunciation (vimeo.com)

National Phonic Screening Check:

All children in Year 1 will be screened using the National Assessment materials in the Summer term. If a child in Year 1 does not reach the required level then additional support will be put in place in order for the child to make accelerated progress with their reading. They will be retested when they are in Year 2. This data will be submitted to the Local Authority.

Assessment Date for 2024 – w/c 10th June 2024