Phonics and Spelling

At St. Mary Bourne we build children’s reading ability with daily phonics sessions . These are fun, interactive sessions lasting around 20 minutes, based on the Letters and Sounds phonics outline. We revisit previous sounds taught, teach a new sound, practice with games and activities, and then apply that sound by reading it within words and sentences or writing using the sound. From Reception, we work through from single sounds, onto diagraphs and trigraphs  (oa, er, igh), to split sounds  (a_e, o_e). The later units focus on spelling patterns and suffixes/prefixes.  As the children’s phonics knowledge progresses, we match their understanding with phonics reading books.  

From September 2020 we have been using a new resource for our phonics teaching called Animaphonics, this is used across the school,

https://www.animaphonics.com/It is a full synthetic phonics programme delivering the core criteria for an effective phonics teaching programme, as outlined by the Department for Education. It is a unique system and structure based on proven research. Phonemes are taught kinaesthetically, with a corresponding picture, song and action.  

To ensure a match of reading materials and phonics learning, Animaphonics provides reading activities (reading pages and poems). These recap the sounds learnt at school, providing an extra opportunity for children to solidify their new knowledge.