Our Curriculum Intent for Phonics

In our EYFS and KS1 classes, we provide a rich reading environment and by doing so, our children learn to listen, speak and discriminate between sounds. Reading opportunities are linked with all stages of their learning. Speaking and listening is given a high priority for children to experiment and become confident and fluent decoders. Our carefully sequenced approach allows children to become confident in segmenting, blending and decoding words through each phonics phase.

Implementation: Phonics & Early Reading

To achieve this, reading is central to all learning. 

By being exposed to a wide range of stories and texts, children are better able to make sense of the world. We foster a love of reading from an early age when the children join us in Reception. To ensure that reading is at the heart of the curriculum, we immerse the children in reading experiences such as daily story times, sharing stories and reading aloud stories including poems, rhymes and non-fiction to develop their speaking and listening skills as well as their vocabulary.  

Reading development is closely related to that of phonics, communication and writing, therefore we ensure that the children are reading books that are closely matched to their phonic level, by providing the children with a reading book aligned to their phonic level, as well as a reading book that supports their vocabulary development and language comprehension. We also use a systematic, synthetic approach to phonics to support the development of early reading.

We use the Lancashire ‘Red Rose Letters and Sounds’ scheme to support our discrete, daily teaching of phonics in EYFS and KS1. We use a systematic approach of ‘revisit, teach, practise, apply,’ in order to provide the children with the phonic knowledge and language comprehension they need to read and write. For more information about each phonic phase click here

At OLSA, we teach Phonics through:

- Daily lessons which follow a systematic approach: revisiting sounds already taught, learning new sounds and practising with applying sounds through activities.

- A multi-sensory approach to teaching, which is engaging.

- Reinforcing and applying acquired phonic knowledge and skills across the curriculum and in shared/guided reading and writing.