What is Phonics?
Essentially, phonics is the ability to blend the sounds a letter, or group of letters (digraphs and trigraphs) make in order to form a word. In EYFS and Key Stage 1, children engage in daily phonic sessions in order to become confident, fluent readers and writers. Where appropriate, children in Key Stage 2 will continue to access phonics sessions based on their individual needs.
Our Phonic Journey
Our journey starts in Nursery with daily phonics sessions based heavily in rhyme, language exposition and exploration of phonics to create engagement and the foundations of a love of language and sounds.
In our Reception class our children receive two phonics sessions daily to ensure a good start to the learning of sounds reading for reading.
Year One pupils have a daily phonics session, followed by targeted work and a reading session. This then also prepares them for their Phonics Screening Check at the end of the academic year.
By the time our pupils reach Year Two we aim for our pupils to have a firm grasp of phonics, blending, segmenting, decoding and reading and that they are ready to begin the Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling teaching.
If any of our pupils are not yet confident reading words we make provision for them to continue on their phonics learning journey.
Why ELS Phonics?
We use Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) to teach early reading and phonics. ELS is a systematic synthetic phonics program that helps children quickly learn to read, write, and spell with confidence.
Our aim is for every child to become a fluent, confident reader who enjoys books and develops a lifelong love of reading. Through the ELS approach, children are taught to:
- Recognise individual sounds (phonemes) and match them to letters (graphemes)
- Blend sounds together to read new words
- Segment words into sounds to support accurate spelling
- Apply their phonics knowledge in reading and writing across the curriculum
Each lesson follows a consistent, structured routine that helps children remember and apply what they have learned. We use high-quality, fully decodable books that are matched precisely to the sounds your child is learning. This ensures that children can practise their skills successfully and grow in confidence.
At home, you can support your child by sharing books regularly, practising the sounds they are learning, and celebrating their progress as they begin their reading journey.
For more information about Essential Letters and Sounds, you can visit the ELS parent website.
Supporting All Learners
A whole-class approach ensures that all children benefit from the full curriculum. Children who encounter difficulties are supported by the teacher throughout the lesson, and where further support is required, ELS has three interventions to ensure that any learning gaps are quickly filled.
ELS is designed on the principle that children should ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’. Since interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher, any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support, usually during the Apply activity.
We know that children – especially those with educational difficulties – learn better in a mixed-ability environment where their learning is scaffolded not only by the teacher and support staff but also by their peers. In this most fundamental area of learning – learning how to read – this support is even more vital, not only to their success but also to the outcomes of the programme as a whole.
Over-learning, alongside a range of Apply activities, helps children who acquire phonic knowledge more slowly to succeed. In ELS pilot schools, all children learned to read at a similar fast pace, because children with additional support needs were rapidly targeted throughout the lesson, and any remaining gaps in their knowledge were closed the same day. Studies show that the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics supports all children’s developing skills when learning to read, and that phonemic awareness (the ability to discern and copy sounds in words) is key to progress. Children’s phonemic awareness supports them when learning how to read, and our rigorous and robust teaching methods ensure that all children build phonemic awareness.
If children require further support to achieve the outcomes of the lesson and keep up with the pace of the programme, ELS has three interventions that are to be delivered on a one-to-one basis: oral blending, GPC recognition and blending for reading. These are intended to be short and concise and last no longer than five minutes. They can be delivered in isolation, or different interventions can be used together to support children each day. This helps ensure that children do not spend excessive time outside of the classroom or in group intervention sessions where they are removed from the rest of the curriculum.
Reading at Home
To support your child:
- Encourage rereading of the same book several times across the week.
- Praise their use of phonics when decoding words.
- Enjoy additional sharing books together for pleasure and language development.
Need more information?
If you have questions about ELS, reading books, or how to help at home, please contact your child’s class teacher. We are always happy to support you.
Letter Formation
It is very important that a child learns to hold their pencil in the correct way from the outset. It is much more difficult to correct this later on. We encourage children to hold their pencil using a tripod grip between the thumb and first two fingers.
Once we have established the correct way to hold the pencil, then we must turn our focus to children forming each letter the correct way. This includes the direction and starting point for each letter. It is important to revise the formation of each letter regularly and when children are writing, be vigilant in checking their pencil hold.
Of course, parental support here can be invaluable as they can work on a one-to-one basis.