Phonics

Phonics Curriculum Intent

At Holy Trinity it is our intent that phonics is taught in a fun and interactive manner which enables the children to use mnemonics and actions to recall phonemes and graphemes from their session. This then enables them to be able to apply this key skill in their reading and writing starting from Nursery as a strong foundation to build on. The children will be able to use the strong phonics foundation taught throughout EYFS ,KS1 and LKS2 to be fluent, confident readers through the rest of their school journey and in their wider life. 

Implementation

At Holy Trinity, phonics is taught using the Department for Education validated "Supersonic Phonic Friends" programme. This is a fully systematic, synthetic phonic approach ranging from the simple to the complex spellings of the alphabetic code.

Supported by the Supersonic Phonic friends, this approach helps our children to develop confidence and apply each skill to their own reading and writing. We have chosen this programme as it provides an engaging, fun and active approach to teaching, which matches our ethos in school. 

There is a clear progression provided by Supersonic Phonics tro support implementation and to ensure skills are built on through the different phases.

Phonics is taught daily for 30 minutes along side pre-teaches, catch up and boosters where needed. 

Research shows that active learning helps children to retain the learning and go into their long-term memory. Every Supersonic lesson is active at all times ensuring every session is maximised, making every minute count. Each lesson is fun and physical and can be taught indoors or taken outdoors.   

Supersonic Phonic Friends’ uses helpful phrases with actions across the teaching sequence to engage and stimulate the children during their phonic session, providing a multi-sensory approach. 

Reading books and Phonics 

We have ensured that our reading books are fully decodable to go alongside the phonics that the children are being taught. Decodable books, also known as phonic readers, are books that contain either decodable or common exception words, meaning that children can read them using just their phonic skills and knowledge. Phonic books are used as take home books and also within guided and phonic reading sessions. This is from Basics 2 to The higher levels.  

We then return to a coloured book system, starting at Orange / Turquoise through to free reader.  

Impact

Children will have a strong foundation in phonics and be able to recognise the 44 sounds (or phonemes) in the English language, know which letters (or graphemes) represent these. They will be able to correctly apply these into their reading and writing, working towards an independent way of working. This will enable the children to become fluent readers and confident writers, having all the foundation skills needed. 

We use a range of strategies to assess these skills and knowledge including the following:

• Phonics tracking to assess the children's progress  
• Phonics jotter to monitor the application of the phonics in the children's writing
• In lesson observations 
• Pupil's voice and self-assessment
• Feedback from each lesson

Format of a lesson: 

1. Revisit and Review- At the start of every phonics lesson, it is important to revisit and review children’s prior phonic knowledge including previous GPC’s taught, oral blending and segmenting and segmenting and blending activities. This part of the lesson is planned for by the class teacher to suit the children’s gaps in learning.  
2. Teach- This is where the children will be introduced to the characters who are a key part of the steps in teaching and introduced to the new GPC for the lesson. Each character focuses on a different part of the steps in teaching.  Listen with Len, Segment with Seb and Blend with Ben, See it with Sam, Segment with Seb and Build with Bill, Read with Rex, Write with Ron.                                                       
3. Practice- This part of the lesson is where children practice reading and or writing with the new learning in. The children will read or write the word and then check to see if it is correct alongside the teacher. They will ‘give themselves a tick or fix it quick!’. At the end of this, the children will end up with the ‘Supersonic Six!’. 
4. Apply- This part of the lesson is where children practice reading and or writing captions and sentences with the new learning in, previous learning and tricky words that have been taught so far.  
5. Finishing the Session- To finish the session the children ‘turn, talk and tell’ to their phonic friend ‘what have you been learning today?’. Cheeky Sneaky Sid will then also give the children a sneak peak of the learning they will do in their following lesson.       

Throughout each step of the way, the children will be introduced to tricky words. These are words which cannot be blended using known sounds. E.g. the, some, little, we, me, she.           

Phonics Progression Overview