St Mary's Phonics
Sounds-Write:
a multisensory, mastery approach
Intent
At St Mary’s, we teach phonics using a linguistic phonics programme called Sounds-Write. Sounds-Write is a very highly structured, multi-sensory, incremental and code-oriented, instructional approach to teaching children to read and spell. Sounds-Write focuses on fluency and automaticity whilst allowing for lots of retrieval practice through it's spiral based approach. It is implemented in the classroom and provides very fast and effective teaching for children at all levels.
Implementation
Children at St Mary's will be sure to tell you how much they enjoy their Sounds-Write lessons. Its structure and simplicity makes it a programme accessible to all learners and helps them to make excellent progress with their reading and spelling. Sounds-Write promotes the use of multisensory engagement with the materials appropriate to the level and abilities of the children being taught. Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities are, at all times, combined simultaneously to promote learning. In addition to being multisensory, the Sounds-Write programme has pace and utilises an array of stimulating lessons and resources. It also enables teachers to differentiate the challenges placed before the learner in order to meet their individual needs.
|
The four key concepts children are taught are:
1. Letters are symbols that represent sounds 2. Sounds can be spelled using 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters 3. The same sound can be spelled in different ways 4. The same spelling can represent different sounds |
|
The three key skills children need to master are:
1. Blending 2. Segmenting 3. Phoneme manipulation |
Key Concepts
Children in our Foundation Stage begin with the initial code where they practice all three key skills whilst learning the 1:1 sound-spelling correspondences and securing their understanding of key concept 1.
This builds up confidence and phonic knowledge in a truly reversible system, enabling them to decode and encode a wide range of words and sentences. At first, children learn to read and write simple one syllable words with a CVC structure.
Complexity of word structure systematically builds up so that children apply their code knowledge to monosyllabic words with up to six sounds.
Sounds-Write across the school
Once the initial code has been mastered, children continue to practice all three key skills whilst learning the extended code which explores key concepts 2, 3 and 4. Learning of the extended code is a lifelong process – we all continue to develop our understanding of this code whenever we encounter new words. Whilst learning the extended code, children read and write monosyllabic and polysyllabic words at an age appropriate level.
Children have a 30 minute phonics lesson every day, in addition to their reading and writing lessons.
We encourage all of our parents to access the free Sounds-Write online course for parents https://www.udemy.com/user/54e5c34e6b89b/ so that they are well-informed about how best to support their children with their reading.
Phonics Screening Check
The statutory Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is a list of 40 words which children will read one-to-one with their class teacher.
It will assess phonics skills and knowledge learned through Reception and Year 1.
|
It will check that your child can:
|