Phonics

Phonics is making connections between the sounds of our spoken words and the letters that are used to write them down.

At The Milford Academy, we follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetics phonics programme to teach early reading and spelling.

Children are systematically taught the phonemes (sounds), using a multi- sensory approach, including the use of mnemonics, to make learning stick. There are daily phonic sessions where the children are encouraged to blend the sounds for reading and segment the sounds for writing.  Children are taught:

  • the grapheme-phoneme correspondence in a clearly defined sequence
  • the skill of segmenting words into their constituent phonemes to spell
  • that blending and segmenting are reversible processes

Additionally, children are gradually taught the high frequency ‘tricky’ words – those which are not phonetically regular. By combining these elements, children have the tools and skills to be able to read and write independently at an early age and are given lots of opportunities to apply their phonic skills throughout a rich and varied curriculum.

When the children have mastered this ‘Basic Code’, we continue to teach some of the alternative graphemes used to represent the sounds, for example the ‘sh’ in words such as mansion, chef and special.

Phonics is formally assessed every half term.  Where children find a particular aspect tricky, or have not quite kept up with the pace and progression of the phonics lessons, they take part in ‘Keep Up’ sessions to ensure all gaps in their phonic knowledge are filled.

Year 1 children will take the Phonics Screening Check in June.  More information about the Phonics Screening Check will be shared in due course.

For further information about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, or to find out other ways that you can support your child with phonics at home, please click on the following link that will take you to the parents section of their website.

For parents – Letters and Sounds (littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk)