Phonics at Red Hill Primary School

At Red Hill Primary School, we are passionate about English. We promote a love of reading, writing and drama, as well as equipping children with the phonetical, comprehension, spelling, grammar and punctuation skills needed to be adept and fluent readers and writers.

The skills that children are taught in Literacy underpin all other subjects. They enable pupils to communicate and express themselves in all areas of their work. Teachers will always make cross-curricular links wherever appropriate and will plan for pupils to apply the skills, knowledge and understanding that they have acquired during Literacy to other areas of the curriculum.

“Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way – starting with the easiest sounds and progressing through to the most complex – it is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It is particularly helpful for children aged 5 to 7. Almost all children who receive 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. Children who have been taught phonics also tend to read more accurately than those taught using other methods, such as ‘look and say’”. (National Curriculum, 2014)

Little Wandle

Research shows that teaching Phonics in a structured and systematic way is the most effective form of teaching young children to read. Almost all children who receive good teaching of Phonics will learn the skills they need to decifer new and unfamiliar words. At Red Hill Primary School, Phonics in the Early Years is taught on a daily basis and follows the DFE accredited Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme. Children are taught the skills for segmenting and blending words and are introduced to new phonemes as part of a systematic synthetic approach. The teaching of Phonics continues in Years 1 and 2 as children are introduced to alternative graphemes, lesser known sounds and begin to learn some of the more complicated spelling rules.