PHONICS
Phonics at Crawford is designed give children the requisite skills to become confident and enthusiastic readers by the time they leave school, who are able to decode and blend sounds in order to read words independently, easily and fluently.
A consistent and unified approach (gestures, resources, rhymes, sayings) to teaching phonics is in practice throughout the whole school meaning that the children have a recognisable point of reference around the school, which supports their phonetical awareness and lessens cognitive overload.
We also intend for all children to enjoy and use a range of high-quality decodable books and texts which match each grapheme the children are learning and have learnt, so that they have experience and practice of applying their phonetic knowledge.
Phonics is taught daily in EYFS and KS1 following the Little Wandle Letters and sounds scheme, a synthetic phonics programme.
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Phonic assessments in Early years and KS1 happen timely to ensure that the pitch of lessons or interventions is matched according to the child’s level.
Early years and KS1 children have access to decodable books which are used for group reading sessions where children can practice and apply their phonetic knowledge at a level appropriate to what they have been taught. Children also take decodable books home, which helps the child to consolidate the phonemes they have been learning in school.
Phonic interventions take place based on the individual needs of the child and is responsive to specific phoneme or skills e.g. oral blending that they may need to work on.
Phonics learning walks/observations show that adults are confident when teaching phonics lessons and group reading sessions in EYFS, KS1 and KS2 (interventions)
In Summer 2023, 39 out of 50 (78%) of children passed the phonics screening in Year 1.
8 out of 16 (50%) of Year 2 children passed the phonics check.