Danehill CE Primary School

Danehill CE Primary School
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Phonics

At Danehill Primary we teach phonics using a linguistic phonics programme called Sounds-Write – a proven Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme validated by the Department for Education. It is based on the science of reading and provides a structured, cumulative, and code-oriented approach to teaching reading and spelling. It starts with what children learn naturally, the sounds of their own language, and teaches them to represent those sounds in writing. Sounds-Write is a complete phonics curriculum that teaches the skills, concepts, and code knowledge necessary for children to read and spell.

Children in Reception and Years 1 & 2 have four 30-minute Sounds-Write sessions every week. Children in Key Stage 2 have weekly spelling sessions, as required for the cohort, as well as planned and incidental teaching of reading and spelling across the curriculum, focusing on morphology and etymology of words.

 

Students are taught four key concepts:

  1. Letters are symbols that represent sounds
  2. Sounds can be spelled using 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters (dog, street, night, dough)
  3. The same sound can be spelled in different ways (rain, break, stay, gate)
  4. The same spelling can represent different sounds (head, seat, break)

Students are taught to master three key skills:

  1. Segmenting - the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words
  2. Blending - the ability to push sounds together to build words
  3. Phoneme manipulation - the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words. This skill is necessary to test out alternatives for spellings that represent more than one sound.

 

Some children require more time and practice when learning to read and spell, and they are supported through ‘keep-up’ and ‘catch-up’ sessions in addition to the whole class teaching.

 

We encourage all of our parents/carers to attend the school’s Phonics and Reading Information Sessions (dates will be advertised in the school missive). If you would like further information about Sounds Write and how to support your child at home, please refer to the document below or access the free Sounds-Write online course.

If you have any questions about phonics, please contact the school office (office@danehill.e-sussex.sch.uk).

 

phonics overview.pdf