At Langley Park Primary Academy we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning how to make connections between the skills of reading and writing. Through the teaching of phonics, children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. The teaching of phonics is of high priority and as well as being taught during discreet sessions, the skills taught here are fully transferable to other areas of the curriculum. 

At Langley Park Primary Academy  we follow Phonics International (a DfE validated programme), a systematic synthetic phonics programme. Phonics International (PI) is a highly-organised, systematic and yet flexible online synthetic phonics programme (program).

We aim to foster a love of reading where children show understanding of what they have read. We teach early reading skills through the daily phonics session and widening this knowledge for them to independently use the language rich environment around them to support their vocabulary development. 

 Phonics is taught discreetly and across the curriculum with their phonic knowledge.

Teachers deliver engaging phonics lessons which are well planned and sequenced using Phonics International. These lessons build, develop and extend for all the children’s skills of word decoding, fluency, vocabulary and transcription. All children have access to appropriately pitched, decodable books to build their confidence in the application of reading skills. These books are matched to the phonics codes the children have been assessed on. 

Direct Phonics instruction is taught every day in Reception and Key Stage 1 to support the development of word decoding, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary. Children are assessed at the end of Year 1 using a Government Statutory Assessment Tool known as the Phonics Screening Check. 

Lesson structure:

• Phonics is taught in Reception  and KS1 daily for 30 minutes

• In EYFS children have 10 minute reading fluency sessions daily based on the alphabetic code .

• Children have 25 minute reading rainbow session in KS1 to develop their comprehension and reading fluency

• In EYFS children have a 20 minute reading rainbow session to develop comprehension and build a shared reading community 

In Reception, the children will learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following GPCs:

Unit 1: s a t i p n c k ck e h r

Unit 2a: m d g o u l ll f ff ss b j y

Unit 2+:v  w  -x  z  -zz  qu  ch  sh  -ng  -nk

Unit 2b:ai ay w oa ow ie igh le o a e i o u y

Unit 3:ee or z zz wh ea ea se ze 

Unit 4:ng nk v ve oo oo y ey x ch sh th ph

In Year 1, the children will build on their prior knowledge and learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following GPCs:

Unit 5: qu ou ow oi ue er ar ce ge se

Unit 5+:  er ir ur a-e e-e i-e o-e u-e air -are ear 

Unit 6:  ce ge oe i-e e-e o-e a-e u-e air are ear ere ear eer ere ier ir ur ear (w)or our si s ge ture x f ph or au aw ie ch ou ew ti ci ssi kn wr mb st

In Year 2, the children will continue to build on their prior knowledge and learn to read, write, blend and segment with the following more complex GPCs:

Unit 7:-le -il -al aw au al oar oor our ch tch ge dge x kn wr mb sc gu bu ch rh

Unit 8: sh ch ti ci ssi /zh/ si s z g ge ou ous ph gh ch wa qua war gn st

Spelling words correctly using their phonics knowledge is a priority in Year 2.

All children in EYFS and KS1 practise their application of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) by reading decodable books that are closely aligned to their developing phonic knowledge. They also take home one book for shared reading which the children chose to promote that love of reading. 

Programme Structure for Nursery:

Day 1: Learn the new code (word level)

Day 2: Apply the code and identify the code in different words. 

Day 3: Learn the new code (word level)

Day 4: Apply the code and identify the code in different words. 

Day 5: Extend and apply by sorting words and objects containing the codes taught during the week.

Programme Structure for Reception and Year 1:

The teaching and learning cycle of Phonics International is set out in the following way:

Day 1: Learn the new code (word level)

Day 2: Apply the new code (sentence level) at a level that is appropriate for the children. The staff use Assessment for Learning from Day 1 to identify groups of children that can work together at an appropriate level to be successful at this.

Day 3: Learn the new code (word level)

Day 4: Apply the new code (sentence level) at a level that is appropriate for the children. The staff use Assessment for Learning from Day 1 to identify groups of children that can work together at an appropriate level to be successful at this.

Day 5: Apply and Extend knowledge of the codes taught that week. Staff will use AfL to determine whether this session is a whole class session or in targeted group work.

Dictation is a skill which is practised daily.  This enables our learners to independently apply their knowledge of the codes taught that week. This starts with new words, building up to whole sentences and beyond.

Programme Structure for Year 2:

The same structure applies as Reception and Year 1 but with a focus on spelling. One code is taught a day until the pattern is taught and then children work at a level that is appropriate to them to apply and extend their knowledge of this.

Impact

Through the consistent, systematic and daily teaching of the Phonics International scheme in 2022, 75% of our children passed the Phonics Screening Check and this is continuing to rise annually. Children have a love of reading and can apply their skills independently across the curriculum.