Systematic Phonics
In the first few years of formal schooling, children are acquiring the essential skill of learning to read. There is overwhelming research evidence that demonstrates early reading progress is most likely to occur when the early reading instruction includes systematic and explicit teaching of phonics, especially for those children who are at greatest risk of reading difficulties.
Our Intent
At Musbury School we are proud to offer pupils a language-rich environment where imagination and creativity can be fueled through high quality texts. We teach phonics through a rigorous phonics curriculum using Sounds-Write. We ensure pupils develop the skills and knowledge they need to develop as confident readers who can access a range of books and enjoy reading for pleasure. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually so that they might prosper and flourish in all that they do. We believe that literature especially plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.
We ensure that:
•There is a sharp focus on ensuring that younger children gain the phonics knowledge and language comprehension necessary to read and spell.
•Reading is prioritised to allow pupils to access the full curriculum.
•We offer a rigorous, sequential approach to the reading curriculum which develops pupils’ fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading through the implementation of the Sounds-Write linguistic programme.
•At all stages, reading attainment is assessed and gaps are addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils.
•At the early stages of learning to read, reading materials are closely matched to the learners’ phonics knowledge.
Our Implementation
From the very beginning of the Sounds-Write programme, we teach three essential skills:
- Blending: the ability to push sounds together to build words.
- Segmenting: the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words.
- Phoneme manipulation: the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words. This skill is necessary to test out alternatives for spellings that represent more than one sound.
These skills are explicitly taught and practised in the context of reading and spelling words in daily phonics lessons, so that they become automatic. We also begin to develop children's conceptual understanding of how our alphabet works.
From the start of the programme in EYFS, children learn the following:
- Letters are symbols that represent sounds.
- A single sound may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters e.g. Dog street night dough
- The same sound can be spelled in more than one way e.g. Rain break gate stay
- One spelling can represent more than one sound. E.g. Head seat break
All phonics lessons are scripted and our teachers and teaching assistants are trained in delivering the lessons with fidelity to the programme. We are consistent in our language throughout: letters or combinations of letters spell sounds (they do not ‘say’ or ‘make’ sounds) so as not to undermine this conceptual understanding.
Throughout the school, we adopt the Sound-Write programme, a quality-first synthetics phonics programme, with a linguistic approach. This provides a comprehensive system with which we teach reading, spelling and writing from Reception. The Sounds-Write program meets the needs of our most vulnerable pupils by taking a phonographic approach.
We start with what all children acquire naturally: the sounds of their own language.
We teach that letters, or combinations of letters, called graphemes, are the agreed ways in which we represent these sounds.
A key part of the Sounds-Write programme is the reduction of the cognitive load. Our focus is on long-term learning by practicing the skills, learning the code and enhancing conceptual understanding. These aspects are repeatedly encountered throughout the carefully designed cumulative programme.
Pre-Initial Code (throughout Early Years)
Prior to beginning the Initial Code, activities concentrate on developing pupils’ speaking and listening skills, phonological awareness and the key skills of oral blending, segmenting and manipulation.
These experiences are intended to be used as part of a broad and rich language curriculum that has speaking and listening at its centre, links language with physical and practical experiences and provides an environment rich in print and abundant in opportunities to engage with high quality books.
This phase paves the way for pupils to make a good start when they begin the Initial Code.
The Initial Code (Reception)
From the very start of Reception, pupils begin to learn the Initial Code using the key skills to read and spell CV, CVC, VCC, CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC, CVCCC and CCCVC words.
Lesson structures establish a clear structure for the teaching of phonics sessions, prioritising word building whilst also teaching the key skills. At first, children learn to read and write simple one- syllable words with a CVC structure. The complexity of word structure systematically builds up so that children apply their code knowledge to monosyllabic words with up to 6 sounds.
Alongside this, pupils are taught high frequency words (“everyday words”) which may use sounds or spellings that pupils will not yet have encountered as part of the programme, but are likely to encounter in their reading (e.g. is and the).
The Extended Code (Year 1 and Year 2)
The Extended Code moves pupils on to vowel digraphs. Units are taught in blocks of common sounds (initial spellings), which are later returned to and extended (more spellings) in a systematic way.
Lesson structures build upon the lessons taught in the Initial Code, whilst extending skills and concepts. The consistent underlying approach enables pupils to make links and develop their skills and knowledge highly effectively.
Polysyllabic Words (Year 1 onwards)
Lesson structures focusing on polysyllabic words teach the following key skills:
- Segmenting: separating words into syllables and taking each syllable in turn and segmenting it into sounds
- Blending: blending sounds into syllables and in turn blending syllables into the word
The key knowledge taught is:
- Some words are made up of more than one syllable
- The spelling of some common syllables, such as prefixes and suffixes
- Some polysyllabic words contain “schwas” We understand that new sounds learned may only be held in “temporary custody” - children need many opportunities to rehearse and consolidate before they are ready to apply these sounds in their independent writing.
For this reason, children are not asked to spell using code that is new to them. Instead, they revisit prior learning for the writing component of their sessions.
Early reading
As pupils move through the Initial Code, they read books which are closely matched to their phonics knowledge. Typically, books will be pitched one unit behind the unit the children are being taught in their phonics lessons so they can consolidate their learning. Our expectation is that pupils should be reading with increased accuracy before moving on. As pupils become efficient in decoding words quickly and independently, their reading increases as does the number of words they can read automatically. Increasing the pace of reading is an important objective in order to support developing reading comprehension.
Pupils are encouraged to read aloud as well as silently. As pupils progress through the Extended Code, many begin reading longer texts with a greater number of complex words independently and with increasing fluency. This process culminates in a shift from learning to read to reading to learn where pupils progress to reading both for pleasure and for information.
Meeting the needs of the timeline set out above will always be adjusted and adapted to meet the needs of all learners and to ensure that every child gains the building blocks they need to become a successful reader. At Musbury School, each child is recognised as an individual in a learning community: if a pupil continues to need to support with their developing phonemic understanding throughout their primary school years, it will be provided through targeted interventions.
Careful thought will always be given to the provision of appropriately structured work for pupils with SEND, and additional support through intervention groups so that all our children are able to prosper and flourish in their learning.
Our approach is multisensory: oral rehearsal, listening and then the physical process of writing.
The Impact
Throughout the teaching sequence, teacher assessment is used to identify pupils who are not grasping 80% of new learning. These pupils are targeted for rapid intervention. Diagnostic tests are carried out to identify individual gaps in knowledge and understanding, as well as any systemic gaps. As pupils’ reading fluency increases, they move to banded books. Their progress through the bands is carefully tracked and analysed, to identify particular strengths and weaknesses and next steps. As a result of a consistent approach to teaching phonics and reading, our children make progress in their phonics from very low starting points.
National Phonic Screening
All pupils in Year 1 have a national phonics screening check which is carried out in June each year. Any pupil who does not attain the required standard repeat the screening in Year 2. This is to ensure that all pupils have a secure foundation upon which to build their reading skills in Key Stage 2.