Phonics

The phonics scheme of work that we use at St William's Catholic Primary is Bug Club Phonics. The reading scheme in EYFS and Key Stage 1 fits perfectly with what the children are learning in Phonics, therefore consolidating and moving them on to be confident and competent readers and spellers. 

Bug Club Phonics gives a solid foundation in reading for all the children and includes characters from popular CBeebies shows, including Alphablocks. The fully decodable phonics books focus on only a few sounds at a time, ensuring the children can fully embed the new sound before moving on. The books will also have some 'tricky words' that will have been taught previously in their phonics sessions, as the phonics is taught in a systematic way.  

The children receive 20- 30 minutes of high quality phonics per day. The lessons involve an interactive approach where children are able to revisit previous sounds, learn new sounds and apply these in different contexts. After a new sound has been taught, the children are allocated books that embed that sound and develop their reading confidence. These books are available both as hard copy books that are sent home with the children, and online so that they can be accessed a number of times to consolidate learning. 

The sessions have a formative ongoing assessment that ensures that children are able to recall previous learning. The termly assessments are very comprehensive and highlight any areas in which the children are struggling. After these have ben highlighted, interventions are put in place to ensure the continued progress of all children in school and boost the children's learning where necessary. 

Our chosen phonics scheme allows us to share with the parents the different sounds that have been taught. The parents/ carers can access the books online, as well as their home readers, they can also complete simple interactive phonics activities online at home, which supports the individuals learning. 

By the end of Year 1, the children will have been taught all the different graphemes and phonemes needed to spell out unfamiliar words. The children in this year group will be asked to complete a national assessment where their phonetical knowledge is assessed. Some of the words that they are asked to read are pseudo (alien words), this is to ensure that the children understand the sounds rather than using sight reading.