Intent

At Rood End Primary we are passionate about ensuring that all children become confident readers.  We believe that phonics provides the foundations for early reading and writing and our pupils are supported through this using a systematic, synthetic programme - Rocket Phonics.  Within our phonics sessions, pupils learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. 

Implementation

As a school, we implement structured daily phonics sessions where phonetic knowledge is developed.  We use the Rocket Phonics programme to consistently teach daily, whole-class phonics sessions.  The programme endeavours to ensure pupils keep up rather than catch up: the steady pace and progression deeply embeds knowledge and skills from the start. It provides a combination of digital and printed resources, and a fully matched series of decodable reading books.

Pupils have regular reading sessions with an adult and we ensure the pupils are regularly practising and applying their phonics knowledge.  Extra support is provided to those pupils in Year 2 (and in Year 3 where appropriate) who have not passed phonics screening in Year 1 and interventions are planned for those children who are working below expected levels.  Each phonics lesson covers these elements:

 Review and revisit – review and revisit previously taught sounds

Teach – new letter-sound correspondence is taught

Practise – Children practise decoding using the programmes ‘Big Book’

Apply – children apply using their Pupil Practice work booklet

Consolidate – children use Target practice reading books to read independently

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. Children can then focus on developing fluency and comprehension throughout the school. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1.