What is phonics?

Phonics is the correspondence between spoken sound (phoneme) and the written letter (grapheme). It is a way of teaching children to read by breaking up words into small chunks of sound. For example we can break a simple word like ‘cat’ into the three sounds c-a-t.

To become successful readers children will learn the individual sounds for each letter or group of letters. Some sounds in English are made up of more than one letter like the sound ‘ea’ in tea or team. Once children know the sounds they will be able to ‘decode’ unfamiliar words by breaking the word into sounds then read the word by blending back together.

For example: sh — o — p = shop

Why do we teach phonics?

Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way - starting with the easiest sounds, progressing through to the most complex - it’s the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It’s particularly helpful or children aged 5–7. Almost all children who have good teaching of phonics will learn the skills they need to tackle new words. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment.

How do we teach phonics?

At Holme C of E Primary Academy, we teach reading through Linguistic Phonics. Our approach to phonics begins in Reception and continues to Year 6. The children, as well as having reading lessons, have explicit phonics lessons throughout their time at Holme. The approach looks at the relationship between spoken language and the written word. Children will study three main skills to enable them to learn to read: blending, the skills of blending graphemes (letters) together; segmenting, separating phonemes (sounds) for spelling; and manipulating, swapping phonemes to develop accuracy in reading. Throughout Key Stage 2, the children study the origins of words which will enable them to discover the meaning of new words.

All teachers receive Sounds~Write training to aid them to deliver linguistic phonics lessons. Sounds~Write takes the children step-by-step through phonics introducing them to the 44 different sounds in the English language and their different spellings gradually and systematically.

Sounds-Write provide a free course for parents in order to help you feel more informed about the programme and also how to best support your child at home with their phonics and reading.  More information about this and more useful information can be found using the button below.