Phonics

Vision for Phonics

Intent

At St Paul and St Timothy’s Catholic Infant School, we recognise the fundamental role reading plays in children’s lives and we will strive to help them become fluent and confident readers. We recognise the impact reading ability and enjoyment has on a child’s academic achievement, wellbeing, and success in future life. The reading and writing of Standard English, alongside proficient language development, is the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum. Children who cannot read fluently are at risk of not fully accessing the wider curriculum. It is our aim that all pupils develop a love for reading, language, and books.

The start of this journey is rooted in Systematic Synthetic Phonics. Phonics is the starting block for all areas of the Curriculum and is fundamental to the reading process. The phonics programme we follow at St Paul & St Timothy’s is Monster Phonics which is a DfE validated child-centred phonics programme. We believe that our programme and approach to phonics gives our children the best opportunity to be successful with early reading as well as empowering our staff with excellent subject knowledge and high-quality planning and resources. This ensures children enjoy and get the most from their phonics lessons.

Why did we choose Monster Phonics?

As a school we know our children well – what appeals to them and what inspires them to learn and be successful. After considering many schemes, Monster Phonics was carefully chosen because of its child-centred, interactive, multi-sensory and highly engaging nature. It facilitates learning by using monsters to group graphemes for recall and act as an easy and fun memory cue for children. It also uses colour-coding to highlight the grapheme when teaching a new grapheme. Once taught and secure, the colour is removed.

Monster Phonics matches the Reception EYFS framework and KS1 Spelling Curriculum. It progresses from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills, building on prior knowledge. The main principles of systematic synthetic phonics teaching are followed, allowing pupils to become confident and successful readers, spellers and writers from a very early stage in their school life. Each monster has a backstory, and these are used in all areas of the phonics programme. Ten monsters and corresponding colours represent the areas of phonics that present the biggest obstacles to learning.

Implementation & Impact

The children begin to learn phonics as soon as they start school in Reception. Phonics lessons are delivered in 25-30-minute slots daily, either in whole class sessions or in smaller group sessions. Phonics lessons are systematic, interactive, fast-paced, fun and highly structured with high expectations of our young readers. Each session gives an opportunity for children to revisit their previous learning, before they are taught new skills which they then practise and apply.

Assessment

Children are assessed regularly both during the lessons and at regular intervals throughout the year, this means that learning is targeted and challenging. Children work in phonic sessions tailored to their individual needs. Phonics is embedded in all areas of the curriculum and children experience regular, planned opportunities to practise and develop their phonic abilities.

At the end of each half term, teachers use ‘Phonics Tracker’ for their Summative Assessment. This allows children’s gaps to be identified quickly and addressed. All children are assessed in the following areas:
• grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge
• segmenting and blending
• reading of tricky words
• reading of non-words

Phonics Screening Check

At the end of Year One, it is statutory for all children to complete the Year One Phonics Screening Check. This usually takes place in June. Children who do not achieve the required standard will retake the Check the following year to ensure they have made good progress.

Interventions

Any child identified as not meeting the learning objectives that day are picked up for same day ‘keep up’ intervention. We also provide Rapid Intervention Programmes interventions for children identified as requiring additional support with segmenting and blending. Regular and efficient monitoring of children’s development in phonics is essential if they are to become competent and confident readers, and subsequently writers.

As an inclusive school, we strive to ensure that all children are able to access a broad and balanced Phonics curriculum offer. Children with SEND are supported within lessons to ensure that a ceiling is not put on their learning. This is achieved through regular retrieval activities, over learning of vocabulary and different ways of recording evidence of learning. Where adaptations are necessary, these are planned carefully to ensure that each child has rigour within their curriculum.

Training

We ensure all our staff are fully trained, supported and empowered to deliver high-quality phonics sessions through the Monster Phonics bespoke training programme and through support from the Phonics and English Subject Leaders. Frequent monitoring from the Phonics Lead ensures high-quality teaching and same day intervention. Classrooms have Monster Phonics working walls which children can refer to throughout the day.

Parents are invited to annual phonics workshops, delivered by the Phonics Lead and are also invited to work with their child in a Phonics lesson, where they gain a clear understanding of how to support phonics and early reading at home.

Reading Scheme

We have invested in the Monster Phonics reading scheme which provides fully decodable books aligned to the programme. Alongside this, we may supplement with the use of Big Cat Phonics and Hero Academy which are also fully aligned with our Monster Phonics teaching structure. The children are assigned books which match the phonics sounds they have been learning. They also have daily reading practice sessions with an adult using the Monster Phonics decodable books to ensure they are regularly practising and applying their phonics knowledge.

Our reading scheme books match phonic ability so that they can be read at home as well as in school. All children take home a book from our library to encourage reading for pleasure. Children at St Paul & St Timothy’s Infant School look forward to their daily phonics sessions and become enthusiastic, fluent readers. Continuous teacher assessment means that all children are given the best start with their early reading skills.