In Reception, Year 1 and 2, we have adopted a new Phonics programme for the 2023-24 academic year – Twinkl Phonics. This DfE validated programme, provides a structured approach to learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences, perfect for helping children progress from simple sounds to developing more complex knowledge and skills.
As towards the end of Year 1, pupils will take part in the national Phonics screening check where pupils read a set of 40 words (a mixture of real and nonsense words) to a teacher.
For more information about the Year 1 Phonics screening check, please see our Assessments page.
Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers
All children will have Quality First Teaching. Any children with identified SEND or in receipt of pupil premium funding will have reasonable adjustments made that are additional to or different from their peers in order to support them to access the curriculum. All reasonable adjustments made are based around the individual and their needs.
As well as this, our school offers a demanding and varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve highly from their starting points.
Year Group Content
Please see the long-term plan below:
Phonics
By the end of Reception, children will have had opportunities to:
- Identify the phoneme when shown any Level 2 grapheme
- Identify any Level 2 grapheme when they hear the phoneme
- Orally blend and segment CVC words, such as ‘sat’ and ‘pat’
- Blend sounds to read VC words, such as ‘if’, ‘am’, ‘on’ and ‘up’
- Segment VC words into their sounds to spell them (using magnetic letters);
- Read the tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out): the, to, I, no, go
- Find all or most Level 2 and Level 3 graphemes, from a display, when given the phoneme;
- Blend and read CVC words (single-syllable words, consisting of three Level 2 and Level 3 graphemes) such as ‘chop’ and ‘night’
- Segment and make phonetically plausible attempts at spelling CVC words (single-syllable words, consisting of three Level 2 and Level 3 graphemes) such as ‘paid’ and ‘seed’
- Read the tricky words - he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are & spell the tricky words - the, to, I, no, go
- Write each letter correctly when following a model
- Find any Level 2 or Level 3 grapheme when given the phoneme
- Blend and read words containing adjacent consonants, as well as segment and spell words containing adjacent consonants, such as ‘sand’, ‘bench’ and ‘flight’
- Read the tricky words - some, one, said, come, do, so, were, when, have, there, out, like, little, what & spell the tricky words - he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, here, they, all, are
- Write each letter, usually using the correct formation
- Orally segment words into phonemes.
1:1 Reading
- Developing vocabulary skills, explaining picture books, retrieving information from the pictures, and making predictions. Say the sounds and read the word.
- Books with words linked to phonic teaching and ability.
- Books with words linked to phonic teaching and ability.
- Varied vocabulary
- Inference skills, retrieval skills.
- Say the sounds and read the word, increased pace and fluency.
Please see the long-term plan below:
Phonics
By the end of Year 1, children will have had opportunities to:
• Give the phoneme, when shown any grapheme that has been taught
• For any given phoneme, write the common graphemes
• Apply phonics knowledge and skills as the primary approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words that are not completely decodable
• Read and spell phonically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words, such as ‘dolphin’ and ‘fantastic’
• Read automatically all taught tricky and common exception words
• Accurately spell all the Level 2, 3 and 4 tricky words and most of the common exception words for reading
• Form each letter correctly
• Use alternative ways of pronouncing and representing the long vowel phonemes, e.g. ‘ea’ in ‘beak’, ‘ee’ in ‘seed’ and ‘y’ in ‘happy’.
1:1 Reading
- Echo and choral reading
- Variety of texts
- Features of non fiction and fiction books.
- Common Exception Words
- Targeted comprehension skills.
- Encourage a love of reading - children to start to develop interests in texts.
- Introduce chapter books for those ready.
- Share all books with class to discuss genres and content
Please see the long-term plan below:
Phonics
By the end of Year 2, children will have had opportunities to:
• Read accurately most words of two or more syllables;
• Read words containing common suffixes
• Read common exception words
• Read most words accurately, in age-appropriate books, without overt sounding and blending, fluent enough to allow them to focus on their understanding rather than on decoding individual words;
• Sound out most unfamiliar words accurately, without undue hesitation
• Segment spoken words into phonemes and represent these by graphemes, spelling many of these words correctly and making phonetically plausible attempts at others
• Spell common exception words.
1:1 Reading
- Read some common exception words.
- Blending the sounds in words that contain the common graphemes for all 40+ phonemes.
- Two or more syllables that contain the same grapheme phoneme correspondences
- Read aloud many words quickly and accurately
- Sound out many unfamiliar words accurately.
- Read accurately most words of 2 or more syllables.
- Read most words containing common suffixes.
- Read most common exception words.
- Sound out most unfamiliar words without hesitation.
- Make some inferences.
- Explain what has happened so far
- Read most words accurately so they can focus on their understanding rather than decoding individual words
- Checking that the text makes sense to them, explaining the meaning of words in context.
- Be able to make some inferences.
- Be able to make a plausible prediction
- Make links between books
Supporting Videos
We have created a selection of videos to help support our pupils in correctly saying and writing the letters of the alphabet and initial code. Please click on the links below to watch the videos.
Initial Code
Extended code