Phonics and reading information
Phonics - Updated October 2024
In Reception, we are currently in Autumn 2
We have already learnt the graphemes - s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f l
The graphemes we are currently learning are - ff ll ss j v w x y z zz qu ch sh th ng nk and s (s/z) at the end of words
We have already learnt the tricky words - the, is, I
The tricky words we are learning are - put, pull, full, as, and, has, his, her, go, no, to, into, she, push, he, of, we, me, be
At Holmes Chapel Primary School, we teach phonics through the Little Wandle letters and sounds revised scheme of work. This is a government-approved systematic, synthetic approach to teaching. Children in Reception—Year 3 take part in daily phonics sessions, and children in Years 4-6 take part in small ‘catch-up’ group sessions where appropriate.
Our practice reading sessions run alongside the phonics teaching and books are carefully matched to each child’s phonic ability to ensure they are fully decodable. Children will take part in adult-led practice reads three times a week and will take home an e-book version of this book to consolidate learning. Children will also choose up to 4 books to take home each week to promote reading for pleasure.
Please see below for downloadable materials that may be useful at home to support your child with phonics learning.
Further information for parents (including video clips to show correct pronunciation of sounds and exemplifications of teaching) can be found on the Little Wandle website: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Phonics teaching
We teach children to understand that they need to be able to recognise both the sounds (phonemes) in words and the written letters, or groups of letters that make the sounds (graphemes). The children have daily Phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1. The children start by learning the single letter sounds, then move on to learning about the more complex digraphs and trigraphs (Please find a list of terms below) The order of sounds taught follows the Little Wandle scheme of work (see below in downloads for a copy of this). On this page, you will find a list of terminology and resources to help you support your child at home.
Phonics teaching is split into 6 phases:
Phase 1 - Pre school. These are the sounds around us, listening for rhyming sounds etc.
Phase 2 and 3 - Reception
Phase 4 - This is taught at the end of Reception and the start of Year 1
Phase 5 - Year 1. By the end of year 1, children should be able to recognise and blend all the discreet sounds.
Phase 6 Year 2. This phase looks at alternative spellings of sounds.
Phonics terminology
Phoneme: The unit of sound we hear. We talk about short sound (a) and long sounds (ay).
Grapheme: The visual representation of the sound. This might be a single letter, or a group of letters.
Digraph: Two letters that make one sound e.g. oi, ay, ch, th, ow, ng, wh, ee, ou.
Trigraph: Three letters that make 1 sound e.g. igh, air, ear, ure.
Split digraph: Where 'e;' is added at the end of a word, to make the short vowel sound long e.g. pin to pine. The i and the e together make the long sound ie, but have been split by the consonant, formally known as 'magic e'.
Printable resources to help your child at home