Phonics
Our phonics curriculum is fully inclusive and meets the needs of all learners, starting from building strong foundations in our EYFS, supporting and challenging them on their journey to being secondary ready, and ultimately ensuring that they are equipped with the cultural capital, skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the future.
Meet our Phonics Coordinator
Phonics at Biggin
Phonics is taught discretely from FS1 (Nursery) through to Year 2. Phonics sessions will continue in KS2 if necessary to ensure all children develop into fluent expressive readers who can comprehend. Children have four sessions each week (daily lessons in FS2). At Biggin we teach Read Write Inc, a systematic synthetic early reading programme developed by Ruth Miskin. It is a rapid learn to read programme so children can read to learn for the rest of their lives whilst developing a wide range of vocabulary and encouraging a love of reading. There are 3 sets of sounds the children work through at their own pace and phonics progresses onto learning spelling rules and patterns as well as developing reading fluency.
Read Write Inc
A Read Write Inc speed sound lesson is taught at the appropriate level, which is followed by a RWI reading session. We make sure that pupils read books that are closely matched to their increasing knowledge of phonics and the common exception words. Progress is monitored using regular assessments to ensure children are constantly working at an appropriately challenging level.
Set 1
Set 1 sounds are taught in the following order together with rhymes to help children form the letters correctly and instantly recognise sounds ready for blending.
*The school’s cursive script has been added to these rhymes.
m |
Lead up Maisie, mountain, mountain, hook |
a |
Lead round the apple, down the leaf |
s |
Lead round and slither down the snake, hook |
d |
Lead round his bottom, up his tall neck and down to his foot, hook |
t |
Lead up, down the tower, across the tower |
i |
Lead up, down the body, dot for the head |
n |
Lead up, down Nobby, over his net |
p |
Lead up, down the plait and over the pirates face, hook |
g |
Lead round her face, down her hair and give her a curl, hook |
o |
Lead all round the orange, hook |
c |
Lead round, curl around the caterpillar |
k |
Lead up, down the kangaroos body, curly tail and leg |
u |
Lead up, down and under, up to the top and draw the puddle |
b |
Lead up, down the laces to the heel, round the toe, hook |
f |
Lead round, down the stem, curl up, draw the leaf |
e |
Lead diagonal, lift off the top and scoop out the egg |
l |
Lead up, down the leg, hook |
h |
Lead up, down the head to the hooves and over his back, hook |
r |
Lead up, down his back and then curl over his arm |
j |
Lead up, down his body, curl and dot |
v |
Lead up, down a wing, up a wing, hook |
y |
Lead up, down a horn, up a horn and under his head, hook |
w |
Lead up, down, up, down, up |
z |
Lead up, zig-zag-zig |
q |
Lead round her head, up past her earrings and down her hair, hook |
x |
Lead up, curl round the arm and round the leg |
th |
Lead up, down the tower, across the tower, then lead up, down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back, hook |
ch |
Lead round, curl around the caterpillar, then lead up, down the horse’s head to the hooves and over his back, hook |
sh |
Lead round and slither down the snake, then lead up, down the head to the hooves and over his back, hook |
qu |
Lead round her head, up past her earrings and down her hair, then lead up, down and under, up to the top and draw the puddle |
ng |
A thing on a string (rhyme) |
nk |
I think I stink (rhyme) |
Set 2 & 3
The children are then taught set 2 sounds. When they are very confident with all of set 1 and 2 they are taught set 3 sounds. Rhymes are taught alongside the sounds.
ay |
May I play? |
ee |
What can you see? |
igh |
Fly high |
ow |
Blow the snow |
oo |
Poo at the zoo |
oo |
Look at a book |
ar |
Start the car |
or |
Shut the door |
air |
That’s not fair |
ir |
Whirl and twirl |
ou |
Shout it out |
oy |
Toy for a boy |
ea |
Cup of tea |
oi |
Spoil the boy |
a-e |
Make a cake |
i-e |
Nice smile |
o-e |
Phone home |
u-e |
Huge brute |
aw |
Yawn at dawn |
are |
Share and care |
ur |
Nurse with a purse |
er |
A better letter |
ow |
Brown cow |
ai |
Snail in the rain |
oa |
Goat in a boat |
ew |
Chew the stew |
ire |
Fire fire! |
ear |
Hear with your ear |
ure |
Sure it’s pure? |
tion |
Pay attention |
tious/cious |
Scrumptious delicious |
Year 1 Phonics Screening
The national phonics screening test was introduced in 2012 to all Year 1 pupils. It is a short, statutory assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It aims to identify the children who need extra help so that they can be given support by school to improve their reading skills. The phonics test is usually taken in June.
What is Phonics?
Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes, phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words by segmenting phonemes (sounds) and blending the phonemes together to say the word.
Learning phonics will help your child to become a good reader and writer.
Phonic Terminology
- Phoneme: The smallest units of sound that are found within a word e.g. c
- Grapheme: The spelling of the sound e.g. th
- Diagraph: Two letters that make one sound when read e.g. ee
- Trigraph: Three letters that make one sound e.g igh
- CVC Words: CVC stands for consonant, vowel, consonant e.g cat
- Segmenting: Breaking up a word into sounds e.g s-ee-n
- Blending: Putting the sounds together to read a word
- Split Diagraph: Is a two letter sound broken up by a constant e.g i_e in the word like
- Tricky Words: Words that cannot easily be decoded
- Common Exception Words: Similar to tricky words, introduced in the new curriculum
Read Write Inc Terminology
- Fred: Read Write Inc mascot who can only speak in sounds.
- Fred Talk: Talking in sounds e.g c – a – t.
- Fred Fingers: Counting sounds on fingers before writing down.
- Speed Sounds: Learnt phonemes read quickly.
- Green Words: These are words that are decodable linking to a taught sound.
- Red Words: These are words that are unable to be sounded out and so are irregular
Useful websites for helping your child with phonics at home
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/http://www.spellingplay.co.uk/
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/
http://www.ictgames.com/resources.html
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
http://www.twinkl.co.uk/
https://www.phonicshero.com