“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” - Dr Suess
Intent
To support our teaching of phonics, we use the DFE approved systematic synthetic phonics scheme SuperSonic Phonic Friends.
Our structured phonics program aims to provide all students with foundational reading and writing skills and recognises the crucial role phonics plays in securing early literacy skills. We are dedicated to fostering confident readers through a systematic approach, consistent and evidence-based teaching practices, and targeted support for all learners across early years and Key Stage 1.
Super Supersonic Phonic Friends is an enchanted adventure of phonics where along the way children meet several friendly woodland characters who represent each literacy skill involved. Supported by the children's 'Supersonic Friends' and rhyming captions and phrases, this approach ensures children develop the confidence to apply each skill to their own reading and writing.
Implementation
In the Foundation Stage, children start learning about phonemes and their corresponding graphemes. We begin by exploring individual letter sounds, for example 'squishy squishy strawberry' for the /s/ sound. Each sound is associated with a picture and an action to help children remember. As they gain confidence, they start reading and writing simple three-letter words, matching each grapheme to the sound they hear. Once they are proficient with CVC words, they are introduced to digraphs, where two letters together represent one sound. Throughout the reception year, our phonics instruction builds on strong foundations of oral blending and segmenting, with an emphasis on rhythm and rhyme. By the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, children are expected to be fluent with all 44 sounds and their common spellings.
In Year 1, children enhance their skills by learning to recognise and recall sequences of more than three sounds and by exploring adjacent consonants to read CVCC and CCVC words such as 'think,' 'coast,' and 'blink.' They also become proficient in identifying and applying alternative sounds for the 44 graphemes learned in Foundation Stage, and they are introduced to different ways of representing previously learned digraphs. With the help of characters like 'Switch it Mitch' and 'Choose to Use Suze,' children learn to recognise spelling patterns and rules to determine the correct spelling for each sound. By the end of Year 1, they will have encountered over 100 different spellings for the 44 sounds. Children also work on 'tricky words' with Tricky Tess. These are words that cannot be decoded using standard phonics rules. Tricky Tess helps identify and address the challenging parts of these words, guiding students on how to approach them. Additionally, 'Nonsense Nan' assists children in reading both real and made-up (alien) words, preparing them for the Year 1 Phonic Screening Check.
Starting in Year 2, we continue to focus on grapheme-phoneme correspondence and learn spelling rules to further develop reading and writing skills. The Supersonic Phonic Friends program offers a customized approach to spelling rules for students in both Year 1 and Year 2.
In all of KS1, reading books are carefully matched to the phonics sounds that children have been taught. Teachers regularly assess children and adapt their reading books to suit their individual needs.
Parents of children in Years R and 1 are invited to a phonics workshop in the Autumn Term which explains our approach to teaching phonics, provides an example lesson and offers guidance on how parents and carers can support their children with reading at home.
Impact
Our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This enables children to focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Through our phonics scheme, children will
- make progress through the different phases of phonics in line with year group expectations and make progress from their own individual starting points
- become confident and resilient in tackling unfamiliar words by applying learnt knowledge and skills to segment, blend and read words which are real and nonsense
- demonstrate high levels of engagement in phonics and will apply their phonological knowledge when reading and writing
- have an increased recognition of tricky words and high frequency words when reading and apply these when writing
Assessment
Formative assessment is carried out on a daily basis in lessons and planning and teaching is adapted in response to this. At the end of each phonics unit, a summative assessment is carried out to identify any gaps in phonic knowlegde which are then planned for. This is an ongoing process which contributes to the selection of the most appropriate reading books for individual children. Assessments are regularly shared with parents to enable parents to best support their children at home.
Attainment in phonics is formally measured by the government's Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1.
