Phonics and Early Reading
Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing of the English language by developing learners' phonemic awareness - the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes - in order to teach the correspondence between these sounds and the spelling patterns (graphemes) that represent them.
The goal of phonics is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out, or in phonics terms, blending the sound-spelling patterns. Since it focuses on the spoken and written units within words, phonics is a sublexical approach and, as a result, is often contrasted with whole language, a word-level-up philosophy for teaching reading.
At Chestnut Park Primary School, we use the Read Write Inc. synthetic phonics programme in the Reception classes and Year One. We will use the programme in Year Two for chidren who still require phonics support.
In our phonic sessions, we teach phonemic awareness which is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate phonemes (smallest units of sound). The aim of Read Write Inc. is to enable beginning readers to decode new written words by sounding them out (known as blending).
For more info, please visit the Read Write Inc website:
Click here for more information about Read Write Inc.
Read Write Inc. Parent Information 1
Read Write Inc. Parent Information 2
How do we form our letters at Chestnut Park? Click here for a letter formation guide.
Frequently asked questions
- What is phonics?
- How do we teach ‘Pure sounds?’
- How do we support children in ‘assisted blending?’
- How do we support children in ‘independent blending?’
- What is the difference between green and red words?
Inspire a love of Reading
100 books to read by the age of 11
