Crab Lane Primary School

Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is a reading strategy that gives children the tools they need to read and write words. Children are taught to hear the phonemes (sounds) in words and segment (break down) and blend (build) words using the graphemes (letters) they have been taught.

What do we do?

At Crab Lane, to give the children the best start in reading, we follow the Read Write Inc. Phonics Scheme. From Nursery to Year 6, children are grouped according to their ability. The children access a daily phonics session, which is systematically planned in order to support children to read as quickly as possible. Children are first taught to read the sounds in words and then apply them in their reading. Once children are secure in recalling the sounds they have been taught at speed, they are then taught to write the corresponding letters.

How do we assess?

In order to ensure that children are making good or better progress, the children are assessed every six weeks by the Reading Leader and re-grouped according to their outcomes.

At Crab Lane, we know that not all children are able to move at the same pace, so in order to ‘keep up and not catch up’, children working below age related expectations access a daily one-to-one intervention that is specifically tailored to their needs.

Expectations of attainment

Below are the expectations for attainment in Reception and Year 1.

Phonics Screening Check

In Year 1, phonics is assessed using the Phonics Screening Check in June. This is provided by the Government to assess the children’s ability to read sounds. In order to check the children they can decode words. They read 40 words that include a range of different sounds the children have been taught. There is a mix of real and nonsense (alien) words to check that children are able to decode words in order to read. As a school we have been doing a lot of work to improve our outcomes in the Phonics Screening check to meet the national standard of 82%. See the table below for our most recent test results.

Our next steps

As part of our School Improvement Plan, we are aiming to improve reading in the Early Years and Year 1 in order to ensure that children are ready to start the Spelling Scheme in Year 2. This academic year, we have invested heavily in Read Write Inc. programme in order to raise attainment. As a result of this, we are projecting an 80% pass rate for 2020 and hope to improve on this further next year.

What can you do as a parent/carer?

To help your child at home, the best thing you can do is read with them for 10 minutes a day. We send home a mix of phonetically decodable books that the children can read and story books for you to read with them for pleasure.

Please check out the phonics page here for helpful videos, tips and ideas about how to support your child be the best they can be.

Each year we run a variety of parent workshops for phonics. Below is an overview of the parent workshops in each term.

Page Last Reviewed: 16.01.2023