Phonics at Vaughan Primary School

At Vaughan Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Twinkl Phonics, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow the Twinkl Phonics Scheme , which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children can tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Vaughan Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception ,Year 1 and Year 2.

• We teach phonics for 20 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• Each week every pupil completes their Twinkl Phonics Pupil Workbook alongside their taught daily sessions to practise skills and consolidate their learning.
• Parent information sheets are uploaded on to MS Teams on a weekly basis to ensure that parents are aware of pupil learning and are able to support their child at home.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

• Any child who needs additional practice has daily ‘Keep-Up’ support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons have smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check.
• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan daily phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps.

Assessment

• Every term from the end of Autumn 1 in Reception, children’s phonic knowledge is assessed, including their ability to sound and blend words with sounds they have learnt.
• These assessments help us match your child to a decodable reading book that they are able to read successfully.

Home Reading

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to ensure that children at Vaughan Primary School are lifelong readers. We value input and collaboration with parents to ensure that all children have both the skill and the will to read. We know that parents are an invaluable resource in ensuring children experience success with reading.

From Reception, each child will take home Vaughan’s bespoke “Reading Roots”, where parents can make notes on their child’s experiences of reading the Reading Practice book or share any books they have enjoyed at home with their child. There are also questions and activities which children can complete based on their fiction or non-fiction text.

Reading Practice Book

• From Reception to Year 2 we follow Twinkl’s Rhino Readers.
• The reading practice book is for your child to read to you to practise their developing reading skills.
• This book should be fully decodable for your child. After the earlier stages of learning in Reception, they should read 9 out of 10 words ‘at a glance’ and 1 in 10 words ‘sounding and blending’.
• This book needs to be returned to school daily as the reading practice books are used at school in reading sessions.
• Your child should be able to read this book without any significant help.
• Reading this book until your child is reading all the words ‘at a glance’ will help your child to build a bank of words in their visual memory.
• These books can be read more than once to secure phonics learning and skills before moving on to the next appropriate level.