Phonics

Lee Chapel’s Approach to Phonics

Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing of the English language by developing learners' awareness of the letter sounds.

Children at Lee Chapel start to learn to read via our designated scheme, Jolly Phonics.

This is a fun and child centered approach to teaching reading phonics with songs and actions for each of the 42 letter sounds designed to teach children to read and write. Children learn the 42 letter sounds of the English language, rather than the alphabet. They are then taken through the stages of blending and segmenting words to develop reading and writing skills.

When the children are ready, usually within their first term in Reception, they are given word tins to take home, to practice their reading. The next stage is for children to start to take home simple “phonic” books to enable them to build up their reading stamina and give them the confidence to read their own book.

Children are taught each specific phoneme, grapheme and digraph during their dedicated daily phonics session as a class.

Phonics also plays an important role as part of pupils’ early reading development within our ‘reading champions’ scheme where children develop their reading/phonic skills in a small differentiated group.

Added to this, pupils have an opportunity to develop the necessary skills to complete the Year One Phonics Screening Test on a one to one basis.

Year One Phonics Screening

The phonics screening check is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual children have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It will identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills.

Children who fail to meet the appropriate standard will be supported in order to retake the check in Year Two.