Phonics

Vision Statement

 At St Michaels First School we are committed to the delivery of excellence in the teaching of Phonics. We aim to develop each child so that they are able to read with fluency as well as develop a love of reading that will stay with our children all their lives.

 

 

Being able to read is the most important skill children will learn during their early schooling and has far-reaching implications for lifelong confidence and well-being. We intend to ensure that beginner readers are ready to get off to a good start in phonic work by the age of five. Such work should be set within a broad and rich language curriculum.

Our children are entitled to a Phonics curriculum which enables them to:

  • gain a progressively deeper understanding of the phonetic structure of the English language.
  • apply their phonic knowledge and skills to decode unfamiliar words fluently and accurately.
  • read rapidly to apply what they have learned across the whole curriculum.
  • create fluent readers, confident speakers and willing writers.
  • develop a life-long love of reading.

The use of phonics is one of the many skills needed to be able to be a reader and writer. We aim to teach high quality phonics to ensure the children have the best start possible in reading and writing. The learning of phonics is the beginning of children’s body of knowledge, skills and understanding that are an essential part of learning to read. In order to read and understand texts children must learn to recognise/decode the words on the page. Good quality phonics teaching allows the child to be secure in the skills of word recognition and decoding which allows children to read fluently. This will result in children being able to read for pleasure and will allow them to move onto developing higher order reading for meaning skills. These phonic skills need to be taught systematically and involve a variety e.g multi-sensory resources for all learners.

Useful links to support your child's learning;
  • The government provide a guide for parents. 
  • Phonics play provide free games that your child can play at home.
  • The app stores have a game called Hairy phonics which can be downloaded with games to play to help children apply their phonic knowledge.