West Blatchington Primary & Nursery School

West Blatchington Primary & Nursery School

Home | Learning | Curriculum | Subjects | Phonics

Phonics

Resilient

Resourceful

Relating

Reflective

Responsibility

Phonics

Research shows that teaching Phonics in a structured and systematic way is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. Almost all children who receive good phonics teaching will learn the skills they need to decipher new and unfamiliar words. Phonics is taught through the ‘Little Wandle, Letters and Sounds’ scheme of work. Children are taught the skills for decoding, segmenting and blending and are introduced to new phonemes and graphemes as part of a systematic synthetic approach. The teaching of Phonics begins in the Early Years and continues throughout Key Stage One where children start to learn alternative graphemes, lesser known sounds and the more complicated spelling rules. 

At the end of Year 1 children are required to sit the Phonics Screening Check to assess their ability to segment and blend words. Children are presented with 40 words – a mixture of real and pseudo words and they are expected to apply their phonics knowledge to read the words. If children are unsuccessful in Year 1 they have the opportunity to retake the check in Year 2. Phonics catch-up groups are put into place to support these children with additional interventions continuing in Key Stage Two if necessary. 

Below you will find a PowerPoint presentation from our Phonics Leads explaing how Phonics is taught at our school.

Further Support for Parents

Below you will find some important documents that will help you and your child continue to practice their phonics at home. There is also a link to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds website which has further guides for parents including links to videos.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/