Phonics & Spelling
At Mount Primary School, we strive to teach children to read effectively. This includes teaching synthetic phonics, sight vocabulary, decoding and encoding words as well as spelling and accurate letter formation. For a number of years we have followed our own approach based around Letters and Sounds 2007 which includes appropriate resources, high-quality staff training and has achieved good results. We have chosen to adopt Essential Letters and Sounds as a validated SSP as it follows the same structure, includes high quality training and resources and will support transition. We are in the process of traning all staff in this new scheme which will be fully implemented in September 2022.
The programme aims to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children. We use Oxford Reading Tree decodable books matched to pupils’ phonic knowledge.
Each phase contains new phonemes to be learnt which increases with difficulty as your child progresses through the phases. At Mount we passionately believe that teaching children to read and write independently is one of the core purposes of a primary school. These fundamental skills not only hold the keys to the rest of the curriculum but also have a huge impact on children’s self-esteem and future life chances. We teach children to:
• read easily, fluently and with good understanding;
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information;
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
At Mount Primary School, we believe that reading and writing are essential life skills and we are dedicated to enabling our children to become enthused, engaged and successful lifelong readers and writers.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage One we implement daily phonics and reading sessions, whereby the children learn new phonemes, improve their ability to segment and blend sounds as well as improve their ability to apply this knowledge into their reading and writing. Children in the early years and Key Stage 1 have access to fully decodable books. By the time children reach Key Stage Two we aim for children to be free readers. Children are able to select texts to read at home from a wide variety of books directed through careful selection of books available in classrooms. We continue to inspire a love of reading and develop comprehension skills through the carefully selected books, which we use for our Literacy teaching. If necessary, Key Stage Two children will continue to receive weekly phonics teaching and also receive regular reading support sessions. This would be something the we would discuss with you, should you child require this support.
Please find attached to this page the 'Phonics Currculum Aims' document.
As the children progress from phonics lessons to spelling, we follow the No Nonsense Spelling programme of study which covers all of the National Curriculum objectives. You can find the spelling pathway below and these objectives are also listed on the English long term plans.
The phonics subject leader is: Mrs. Heseltine