Phonics
All children at Overdale Infant School have daily phonics sessions. Phonics is a crucial part of Foundation Stage and Key Stage One as it gives children confidence and helps them become independent readers and writers.
At Overdale Infant School we use Reading Planet Rocket Phonics which is a DfE validated SSP programme aligned to Letters and Sounds 2007. Rocket Phonics aims to help every child to keep up and not catch-up. Rocket phonics does this through steady pace and progression, whole-class teaching and consistent daily phonics practice. At Overdale Infant School we use this programme throughout Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Children will begin learning Phase 1 in Pre-School. Recpetion children will be taught Phase 2 and Phase 3. Phase 3 is recapped in Year 1 and children will also be taught Phase 5. Children in Year 2 start with recapping phase 5 of phonics before moving on to spelling rules and patterns.
Children also learn to read and spell tricky words; words which don’t rely on phonics.
Phonics is taught through various phases:
- Phase 1 focuses on everyday sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and orally segmenting and blending.
- Phase 2 focuses on learning all single sounds and how to read and write them in words.
- Phase 3 focuses on learning simple digraph (two letters one sound) and trigraph (three letters one sound) sounds and applying these to words and sentences (for example, igh, oo, ear and er)
- Phase 5 focuses on learning alternative digraph and trigraph sounds and applying these to words and sentences (for example, ie, ph, oe and ai)
Throughout their phonics journey, children will also be taught how to read and write adjacent consonants in words (for example, fl, pr,cr and st)
When we read in phonics we:
- Read new and old graphemes that make the same sound.
- The children say: “Look at the letters, make the sounds and blend the sounds together”
When we write in phonics we:
- Write different words using the sound
- Use correct letter formation (ascenders and descenders and only capital letters in the correct place)
- The children say: “Say the word, segment the word, write the word”
Follow the link below for a parent friendly video all about Rocket Phonics. This video will also show you how to make the 'pure sounds' we use for each letter or combination of letters when teaching phonics.
