Phonics and Early Reading at Roxton CE Primary Academy

At Roxton we follow the DfE Validated 'Supersonic Phonics Friends' Scheme.

This is a progressive scheme which moves from the simple to the complex, moving through different groups of sounds and giving a wide range of opportunities and experiences for children to acquire Phonic Knowledge and the skills of early reading. 

Supersonic Phonic Friends moves through the following content:

• Firm Foundations in Phonics 1 – general sound discrimination and phonological awareness.
• Reception: The Basics 2 – Listen, Recognise, Build, Read and Write.
• Reception: The Basics 3 – Recognise, Build and Write.
• Year 1: Adjacent Consonants and The Higher Levels. The Basics 4 – Recognise, Build, Read and Write.
• Higher Levels of Phonics 5  c and b – Recognise, Build, read and Write.

Firm Foundations in Phonics 1

This covers:

• General Sound Discrimination through the aspects of; Environment Sounds, Instrumental Sounds and Body Percussion.
• Phonological Awareness through the aspects of Rhythm and Rhyme, Alliteration, Voice Sounds and Oral Blending and Segmenting.

The strands covered include: 

• Tuning into Sounds (auditory discrimination)
• Listening and Remembering Sounds (Auditory memory and sequencing)
• Talking about Sounds (Developing vocabulary and language comprehension)

Reception: The Basics 2. Listen, Recognise, Build, Read and Write.

This covers 18 of the 44 sounds of the English Language. Children will use their Auditory Processing and Memory Skills from the Firm Foundations, previously covered. They will start to recognise the sounds to segment and build with, read and blend and write. 

At the end of this phase, children will be able to hear up to 3 sounds in words, recognise spellings and read and write simple CVC words with the 18 spellings for sounds. 

Securing The Basics 2  CVC		Tricky Words
Group 1:  s, a, t, p		N/A
Group 2:  i, n, m, d		I, is
Group 3:  g, o, c, k		the, to,
Group 4:  ck, e, u, r,		go, no,
Group 5:  h, b, f, l,		has, his, as,
Group 6:  ll, ff, ss		of, into

 Reception: The Basics 3. Recognise, Build, Read and Write. 

The Basics 3 teaches the children the further 26 of the 44 sounds of the English Language. Children will use their auditory processing and memory skills from Firm Foundations in Phonics 1 and The Basics 2 skills to continue to recognise the spelling for sounds, segment and build, read and blend and write. They will learn skills to choose which sounds to use and begin to switch sounds for alternative pronunciations. 

At the end of this phase, children will be able to hear up to 3 sounds in words, recognise spellings and read and write simple and complex CVC words with the 44 spellings for sounds. 

Securing The Basics 3  CVC		Tricky Words
Group 1:  j, v, w, x		her, was, you
Group 2:  y, z, zz, qu		he, she, we, me, be
Group 3:  ch, sh, th, ng		they, my, by
Group 4:  ai, ee, igh, oa		are, all
Group 5:  oo, oo, ar, or		some, come
Group 6:  ur, ow, oi, er		so, do
Group 7:  ure, ear, air		little, out

 Year 1: The Basics 4. Recognise, Build Read and Write.

This phase moves from 3 sounds (CVC) to four plus sounds. (CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVCC)

The Basics 4 teaches children to be able to hear more than three sounds in a word. They continue to embed their mastery of the basics 2 and 3 spellings for sounds in words and progress to 4, 5 and 6 sounds in a word. Children will also start to listen and hear tricky adjacent consonants and read tricky words and nonsense (pseudo) words. 

Securing The Basics 4. Adjacent Consonants.	Tricky Words
Group 1: CVCC	were, what, like, have
Group 2: CVCC and Polysyllabic	there, here, said, one
Group 3: CCVC	house, when, our, your
Group 4: CCVC and Polysyllabic	love, school
Group 5: CCVCC  CCCVCC and Polysyllabic	them, then, that, this

 The Higher Levels of Phonics 5 c and b - Recognise, Build, Read and Write.

The phase teaches the children the concept that there are more than one spelling for a sound that they can hear in a word. They will find out about 'sounds the same but looks different' and choosing spelling rules for the 44 sounds of the English Language. 

Children will also switch in and out different spelling sounds where one spelling can make up to 2 different sounds in words. They will be able to read decodable texts with the Basics to High Level spellings including adjacent consonants and make more accurate attempts in their further stages of spelling in their writing journey. 

The Higher Levels – Choose to use spellings.		Tricky Words
Group 1 Choose to use Two	ai and ay, ee and ea, igh and ie, oa and oe, oo and ue	their, people, Mr, Mrs
Group 2 Choose to use - Split - Digraph	ai, ay and a_e, ee, ea and e_e, igh, ie and i_e, oa, oe and o_e, oo and ue and u_e	oh, these, friend, asked
Group 3 Choose to use Two	oi and oy, ur and ir, ow and ou, or and aw, w and wh	where, today, once
Group 4 Choose to use Two and Three	air and are, n and kn, r and wr, f and ff and ph, or, aw and au	could, should, would. called
Group 5 Choose to use Three and Four	n, kn and gn, or, aw, au and ore, ee, ea, e_e and ey, ee, ea, e_e, ey and y oo, ue, u_e and ew	looked, son, says, want
Group 6 Choose to Use	air, are and ear ur, ir, and or ch and tch j and dge ur, ir, or and er	after, half, only, with

 

The Higher Levels   Switch it Spell Sounds			Tricky Words
Group 1 Switch it	i, o, c, g	sixth and wild,  frog and old crisp and cement growl and gem	does, goes, tall, call, small, laughed
Group 2 Switch it	u, ow, ie, ea	underpants and tuba clown and yellow pie and chief dream and bread	why, over, above. live, please
Group 3 Switch it	a, a, ou, o	apple and angel apple, angel and watch Mouse and mouldy frog, old and monk	water, because, break, work
Group 4 Switch it	y, y, ch, ch, ou	yellow and cry, yellow, cry and crystal, children and chef children, chef and chorus	who, any, many, move, eye

Year 1 and 2 Phonics Screening Check

In June, the current Year 1 pupils will take part in the Government Phonics Screening Check, alongside any Year 2 children who were not at the expected level when they were in Year 1. This is a check which involves children reading 40 decodable words using their phonic knowledge. The 40 words will include 20 'nonsense' words in order to ensure use of phonics as opposed to sight recognition of words.  This is a progress check to identify those children who are not at the expected level in their reading.  The results will be reported to parents.  

Any child working significantly below the level of the screening check, may be dis-applied, with the acknowledgment of the parent/carer.