Early Reading & Phonics

At Penwortham Primary School we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident readers who are passionate about reading.

Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to so many different worlds! Our expectation is that children read at home four times a week and record this in their reading diaries.

More importantly, reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners.

We can achieve this together through:

-Red Rose Letters and Sounds Phonics program to help to your child read at school

-Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily, at home and at school

-Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

We use the Lancashire Red Rose Phonics scheme to give your child the best possible start with their literacy development. Mrs Barlow is our phonics lead, so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact her [email protected] 

What is Red Rose Letters and Sounds?

Red Rose Letters and Sounds aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children to read by developing their phonics knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting in Pre-School, with the aim of them fluent readers by the age of 7.

Pre-School

Our pre-school children are taught phase one of the programme. This phase focusses on the seven aspects of phonological awareness; Aspect 1: environmental sounds, Aspect 2: instrumental sounds, Aspect 3: body percussion, Aspect 4: rhythm and rhyme, Aspect 5: alliteration, Aspect 6: voice sounds, Aspect 7: oral blending and segmenting. This phase will ensure the children become successful communicators, paving the way for them to make a good start on their reading and writing journey.

Reception

When appropriate, children will be introduced to the initial sounds.

In Reception, all children will learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down.

Reading

The children:

• Learn 44 sounds and the corresponding letters/letter groups

• Learn to read words using sound buttons for segmenting and sound blending

• Read from a range of storybooks and non-fiction books matched to their phonic knowledge

• Develop comprehension skills in stories by answering 'Find It' and 'Prove It' discussion questions

Writing

The children:

·Learn to write and form the letters/letter groups which represent the 44 sounds with the help of fun phrases (see below)

• Learn to write words by using phonics fingers

• Learn to build sentences by practising sentences out loud before they write 

Children begin reading blending books and phonics bug books in the Reception Class as soon as they can recognise the first set of sounds in phase 2. These books are matched to children’s phonic ability and reading these books will support the development of the children’s skills in learning to decode and blend words.

Children progress through the remainder of their time in Reception, Year One and Year Two working through our structured reading books until they are ready to move onto free choice colour banded books. They take their books to read at home and this is monitored weekly in class. Throughout this process the children are assessed on a regular basis to check their reading ability and to ensure that they are reading the correct stage books for their ability.

Progression through the phases

There are five phases in the Red Rose Letters and sounds programme

Phase 1

This phase focusses on the seven aspects of phonological awareness; Aspect 1: environmental sounds, Aspect 2: instrumental sounds, Aspect 3: body percussion, Aspect 4: rhythm and rhyme, Aspect 5: alliteration, Aspect 6: voice sounds, Aspect 7: oral blending and segmenting. This phase will ensure the children become successful communicators, paving the way for them to make a good start on their reading and writing journey.

Phase 2

Children entering Phase 2 will continue to build on the foundations from Phase They should have experienced a wealth of speaking and listening activities, including songs, stories and rhymes, alongside oral blending and segmenting. The purpose of Phase 2 is to teach 23 GPCs with single letter graphemes and some digraphs, with application into reading and writing. Explicit teaching focuses on the recognition of GPCs alongside oral blending and segmenting, and application into reading and writing words and sentences. Children will also be taught how to read and spell 6 tricky words with automaticity of reading tricky words being essential.