Statutory Phonics

Please follow the link below to obtain further information about phonics testing.

Department for Education further information  

Phonics

At Trinity All Saints School early reading is taught using synthetic phonics as the main approach. In Nursery children are taught listening skills, to tune into and differentiate between sounds; skills which are vitally important foundations for reading. From Reception children are systematically taught the phonemes (sounds). They are taught in a fun, multi-sensory way using songs and actions (from the Letterland scheme), together with the shape of the letters. Children are taught to blend the sounds to read words and to segment (split up) words to hear the individual sounds for writing. They are also taught ‘tricky’ words which do not follow the phonic rules.

We use a variety of programmes from the internet to support our teaching of phonics. We recommend the following:

http://www.letterland.com/parent-guide

https://phonicbooks.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/how-to-say-the-sounds-of-letters-in-synthetic-phonics/

https://www.mrthornenetwork.com/phonics 

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm

Reading

At Trinity All Saints children read in Guided Reading groups led by an adult focusing on different reading skills. The children are encouraged to read at their own pace. Follow up activities, discussion and questioning ensures that they have understood what they are reading. All the Guided Reading books are colour banded for different reading levels and each reading band includes books from different reading schemes so that children experience a range of genres, text types, authors and illustrations. The children are encouraged to use the school library as part of the ‘real book’ approach to reading. Story time in class throughout the school is a very important time of the day.

Children are given books to read at home accompanied by a Reading Journal. This journal is for parents and carers to make comments about how their child is progressing with their reading. It may include questions to support parents in discussing the book with their child and list of high frequency or tricky words. Adults in school will also write notes in the journal, so that we can have a conversation about your child’s reading.  Books will be changed regularly.