Phonics & Spelling

Phonics at St Basil’s

At St Basil’s we are using the Oxford Reading Tree series to take children through the early stages of learning to read. We are using the Floppy’s Phonics teaching programme, which is a step-by-step phonics reading scheme. It introduces the children to the letters and sounds that are the foundation of all reading at writing. Children are familiar with the Oxford Reading Tree books and characters. Children at St Basil’s have a Phonics Folder which they take home. Inside is the Alphabetic Code and they are being trained on how to use this.

They are being taught:

Knowledge of the Alphabetic Code which is letters linked to the sounds of speech. They are also being taught how to form these correctly, in line with our school handwriting font. The code is ‘reversible’ and introduced ‘systematically’ They are then being taught:

1. ‘Sounding out and blending’ for reading
2. Identifying sounds in words and allotting letters and letter groups for spelling

Oxford Reading Tree books have cover notes to provide guidance for the adult to support the young reader to blend and segment. The blending routine for reading and the segmenting routine for spelling.

Further resources to support learning in phonics can be found at the links below:

https://www.phonicsbloom.com/

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources

Spelling

Spelling is to be taught using Pathways to Spell which is available from Year One to Year Six. The focus of the programme is on spelling, which embraces knowledge of spelling conventions - patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings. Each lesson is approximately ten to fifteen minutes long, but lesson plans are flexible if extra time is needed on a teaching point or taught at the beginning of an English lesson where appropriate. Spelling rules and patterns should be highlighted in every lesson taught, so that children are consistently applying what they have been taught throughout the curriculum.