Phonics Curriculum

Phonics Progression

At Old Town Infant School and Nursery, we follow our own scheme for teaching synthetic phonics that uses the order of sounds from Bug Club. We have matched our reading books to align with our phonics scheme. 

Phase 1 Phonics

Children who join our nursery or who are new to phonics will be supported through an exploration of phase 1 phonics. This will involve children identifying and discriminating between different sounds within the environment and instrumental sounds. It will also explore body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and voice sounds. There will also be opportunities for children to begin to orally blend and segment sounds in words. These opportunities will continue for children within the provision once they have begun learning phase 2 sounds to deepen their phonological understanding. If children are not secure with phase 1 phonics at any point in our school they will be supported through intervention and targeted teaching to ensure they secure this phase.

Phase 1 is divided into 7 aspects that is then divided into 3 strands to support teaching. We have based our model on the original Letters and Sounds programme of phonics.

Reception

As children move into reception they will begin being taught synthetic phonics. If children are not secure with phase 1 phonics they will be targeted in small groups alongside learning phase 2 sounds. The autumn term will focus solely on learning to produce and read sounds (decoding) whilst children learn the letter formation through Kinetic Letters lessons. Once children have been exposed to learning the letter formation following the Kinetic Letters programme will they start writing in phonics lessons. Once children are secure with phase 2 sounds they will be introduced to phase 3 sounds. This will be reflected in the phonic books they take home to support their learning. Children will take home matched books so that they are secure with the sounds the book contains. 

Key Stage 1

Children will have opportunities to revisit sounds learnt in reception during the autumn term. Children will then progress onto learning phase 4 and 5. This will ensure children have been taught all of the sounds and are fluent and confident to access their Phonics Screening Check towards the end of Year 1. Once children have secured phase 5 they will move onto phase 6 where they will begin to explore spelling patterns and focus learning on applying their phonics in their writing. 

Reading Curriculum

At Old Town Infant School and Nursery, we want to ensure our children develop a love of reading through a range of engaging and diverse texts. Our aim is to ensure children can explore a range of stories, ideas, concepts and knowledge through meaningful books across the curriculum.

We want reading to be central to our curriculum and for this to happen we believe our choice of core books are vital. Throughout children’s time at Old Town, we want them to experience and enjoy a range of books to challenge and develop their understanding of the world around them. We also want to make sure they become fluent readers by learning how to decode successfully as well as developing comprehension and reading skills.

Love of Reading

The books on our story spine are designed to be shared in whole class reading opportunities. They will be explored in detail and offer the children opportunities to develop decoding, vocabulary and comprehension skills. We also want to make sure children have the time and space to enjoy a range of books within daily story times that will broaden their understanding of the world. These are books that we want our children to know and enjoy.

Guided Reading Sessions

In KS1, children will engage in 3-4 guided reading sessions a week. This will provide children with opportunities to dive deeper into a text by looking a shorter extracts across a few weeks. This is when we will teach the children tier 2 vocabulary and engage in fun and exciting games to deepen their understanding and use of these new words. Reading skills will be taught within these sessions and will progress over time.

Matched Books for Children

In order for our children to become confident and fluent readers we want to ensure the books they are taking home to read with their families and alongside staff in school match their phonic ability. This will ensure they develop fluency as well as confidence in their reading. Once this is achieved, children are far more likely to enjoy their own reading and thrive as a reader. We have carefully matched our own books to the order in which we teach phonics. This ensures children are only taking home books that they can read with complete success. We check in with our children regularly to ensure these are matched correctly and use assessments to decide when they are ready for the next set. In school, we will sometimes try to read the set above to ensure they are being sufficiently challenged but in a supportive and encouraging environment. All children will be heard reading each week by a known adult. This will be 1:1 with their banded book as well as during guided reading sessions.

We have aligned our books to the Bug Club sequence of sounds in sets, which matches our phonics teaching sequence.

On the back of our books, a sticker shares the correct banding, focus set of sounds and any words that need to be pre-taught to the children. These are words the children will need support with reading but is presented to the children when an adult introduces the book.