Phonics
Phonics at Abbots Ripton Church of England Primary School
Intent
We believe that learning phonics is a crucial skill to support children in becoming early readers and writers. We know that this skill has to be practised, and applied daily and this skill is given priority in our school day. We also understand the importance of parents as partners and have phonic and reading workshops at the outset of the school year, to support learning at home
Implementation
We are using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised scheme to teach phonics in Reception and Year 1, and spelling in Year 2 to teach phonics with a systematic, synthetic progression. Children in KS1 have a daily lesson and children in Reception and Year 1, a reading practice session three times a week, where they can apply the phonemes learnt in lessons. The three sessions focus on decoding, prosody (fluency) and comprehension of the text. This book is then sent home to share with parents through an eBook system after the third read to ensure progressive fluency.
We move the children on at the same pace and have a mastery approach, where all children have the opportunity to learn the new phonemes and graphemes. We review learning every 6 weeks and support those falling behind with daily keep up sessions. Those children who have fallen behind in Year 2,3 and 4, have Rapid Catch Up in addition to their spelling lessons, to embed their phonics learning.
Impact
Assessment of all children is carried out every 6 weeks in both Reception and Year 1, to highlight any gaps that arise. These gaps are reviewed in keep up sessions. The Year 1 children have the national phonic assessment which is carried out in June of every year. At the end of year 1, the children are assessed for fluency and leave the Little Wandle scheme if they pass the phase 5 fluency assessment. They continue to progress in their reading through using a colour banded scheme of books.