Phonics

At Aston on Trent we aim to develop the full potential of all our pupils as confident, literate readers and writers. In order to do this, it is vitally important that they have a secure understanding of the letter sounds and spelling system of the English language. Phonic skills need to be developed in a systematic way, based on a staged approach.

Phonics at Aston is taught using the Twinkl Phonics Programme, which offers a coherently planned sequence of lessons that supports the effective teaching of phonics within EYFS, Key Stage 1 and, where appropriate, KS2.

Children have daily phonics teaching and are given further opportunities to practice and develop their reading and writing skills. The following conceptual knowledge is taught: 

-Letters are symbols (spellings) that represent sounds. 

-A sound may be represented or spelled by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters, e.g. dog , street, night, dough. 

-The same sound may be spelled in more than one way (one sound-different spellings), e.g. rain, break, gate, stay. 

-Many spellings can represent more than one sound (one spelling- different sounds), e.g. head, seat, break. 

The children develop the skills of blending (combining sounds together to build words), segmenting (breaking up a word into individual sounds) and manipulating sounds to read and spell words correctly.  

You can use the links below to find out more:

Twinkl Phonics Levels

Use the links below to view each Phonics Level and the relevant sounds:

Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

Every Year 1 child in the Summer term will take a Phonics Screening Check. This is a phonics based check where children will be expected to read 40 simple, decodable words including nonsense words. This is a progress check to identify those children not at expected level in their reading. The results will be reported to parents as well as the local authority.

Children will be rechecked in Year 2 if they do not reach the expected level. Any child working below the level of the screen check may be disapplied, with the acknowledgment of the parent/carer. 

You can find out more about Phonics Screening and 'Alien' words by following the link below:

Assessment & Tracking

All pupils are assessed at the end of each level or sub-level (Twinkl Phonics Levels 5 and 6). During daily sessions of phonics there are also opportunities for staff to regularly assess children’s understanding.  Outside the discrete daily phonics sessions there are opportunities to observe the application of phonic skills, e.g. during guided reading (EYFS & Y1) and Whole Class Reading lessons (Y2-Y6).

Regular monitoring of the assessment outcomes allows teachers to ensure that all children are making expected progress, including children in the most vulnerable groups. This information is also used to identify children who are not making expected progress and therefore early intervention can be put in place.

Intervention

Through careful monitoring and tracking, teachers are able to identify children who are not making the expected progress and therefore need extra support through intervention to catch up. Depending on the needs of individuals, this may include additional individual or small group teaching before the lesson or after the main lesson; one to one work with a trained practitioner or extra support for a child or small group of children within a lesson. It is important that children who are struggling to learn to read not only need to catch up with their peers, but also to continue to make progress.