Sparkwell All Saints Primary School

Phonics and Early Reading

How we teach phonics at Sparkwell
 
Phonics is the preferred and most effective method of teaching children how to read and write. Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words. Some are represented by one letter, like ‘t’, and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck and ‘air’ in chair.

Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.

Synthetic phonics refers to ‘synthesising’, or blending, the sounds to read words. It is based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context.
 
If you are new to phonics, this short video can help you make sure you are saying the sounds correctly!
What is Bug Club?
 
At home you will have access to an online learning platform that the school will use to help teach your child to read and that you can access at home.
It has carefully graded eBooks and you will get details on how to access eBooks via a personalised website. The books include games and activities and can also read the book aloud as an audio book. We will also send books home as we know this is important too.
 
 
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