Phonics

Intent

At Even Swindon Primary School, we are phonologists.

We believe that a well-rounded reading curriculum will provide children with a key life skill that underpins access to the rest of the curriculum. We have therefore chosen to follow the DfE validated, systematic, synthetic phonics programme Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) This programme provides a consistent approach to teaching phonics across the school.

We have carefully chosen our Phonics curriculum so that children are able to read words and simple sentences by the end of Reception, become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1 and develop a lifelong love of reading as they move through school. The systematic teaching of synthetic phonics, using the Essential Letters and Sounds Phonics programme, is given a high priority throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1.

We strive to inspire and encourage pupils to read with confidence, fluency and enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills.

Implementation

Impact

We believe high quality learning in phonics has been achieved when pupils are able to read by identifying the phonemes and graphemes within words and using these to read words. Children will experience the joy of books and language, whilst rapidly acquiring the skills they need to become fluent independent readers and writers.

This will be evident through children applying their knowledge of phonics to tackle unfamiliar words that they might discover. Children will become confident, fluent readers through the daily teaching of phonics which impacts all areas of our curriculum.

The impact of our phonics curriculum will be overseen by the subject leaders through learning walks, team-teaching, pupil and staff voice and termly data analysis.