Scroll to content
School Logo

Westmoor Primary School

Work Together, Play Together, Succeed Together

Phonics

 

                                                   

 

Quality phonics teaching and learning is a key priority at Westmoor Primary School and one we recognise as paramount to children progressing to be confident and fluent readers and learners. 

 

Word recognition and understanding is essential to enable children to become skilled and fluent readers. In Reception and Key Stage 1, we place great emphasis on teaching phonics and developing children's phonological awareness. These early years are crucial to establish the foundations for reading fluently and accurately, developing comprehension skills and fostering a love of reading and literature.

 

To deliver high-quality phonics teaching and learning, we use the newly developed and validated story-based SSP (systematic synthetic phonics) programme Rocket Phonics which not only focuses on the key fundamentals and alphabetic code, but also fosters a love of reading and story. The 'Target Practice Reading Books' are written and illustrated by a range of authors and illustrators which are fully decodable matched to the teaching and learning sequence and progression plan. In addition, the digital 'Big Books' are central to the programme. They consist of language-rich stories to teach all of the target letter sounds in context. These also introduce new vocabulary for discussion.

 

 

Please click the link below to find out more about our phonics scheme, Rocket Phonics:

https://www.risingstars-uk.com/subjects/reading-and-ebooks/rising-stars-reading-planet/reading-planet-reception-and-ks1/rocket-phonics

 

To start the reading journey and embed essential early reading skills for children in our Early Years and Key Stage 1, we have invested significantly in new reading books from the Rising Stars Reading Planet Scheme

 

Please click the link below to find out more about our reading scheme, Reading Planet:

https://www.risingstars-uk.com/subjects/reading-and-ebooks/rising-stars-reading-planet/reading-planet-reception-and-ks1

 

 

Glossary of key words used in phonics

CVC

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words e.g. cat, pin

CVCC/ CCVC

Consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant words e.g. milk, belt

Consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant words e.g. clap, from

grapheme

a visual representation of a sound this can be a single letter or a group of letters.

digraph

2 letters making 1 sound e.g. ai, sh

trigraph

3 letters making 1 sound e.g. igh, air

split digraph

when the digraph has been separated by other letters e.g. name

blending

Blending is the skill of joining sounds together to read words. We teach the children to say the sounds and blend them together.

segmenting

This is the opposite to blending. The children will say the individual sounds in a word to spell it.

 

 

Phonics Screening

 

In June all year 1 children will take part in the phonic screening check. They will have to read 20 real words and 20 alien words. Please take a look at the past screening checks below.

Top