Phonics

Our approach to phonics and early reading at Lakenham

Phonics is an essential skills to help children to learn to read and write.
We know that as soon as children are able to crack the basics of reading, then reading books becomes enjoyable and suddenly the whole world is at your fingertips!

Our EYFS , Year 1 and Year 2  use FFT Success for All Phonics, which is a complete systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme that has been validated by the Department for Education.

The recent DFE Reading Framework states the importance of phonics as the method to support children who are learning to read. 

We recognise that some children are not yet secure with their phonic knowledge and so explicit teaching of phonics shouldn't just stop after Year 1.

Children who still need some additional phonics support are identified through regular assessments and will have daily discrete additional phonic sessions with an adult, as well as additional decoding practice during their group reading sessions.

Once pupils are confident using phonics to read, and are able to access a range of texts independently, they move on to our Reading Cycle and spelling lessons in the classroom.

Key Stage 2

Phonics continues across the school, all the way to Year 6. However, in KS2 it is known as spelling.

From Year 3-6, we use CUSP spelling plans to deliver the spelling curriculum. 

This progressive approach, allows children to review, practise and apply spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) knowledge and skills from the National Curriculum such as:

-alternative spellings and pronunciations for all phonemes. 
-syllables
-silent letters
-prefixes and suffixes
- homophones and near homophones
- different tenses
-SPAG (such as apostrophes) 

Spelling is taught through lesson starters, at the beginning of writing lessons.

 Our Phonics Environments