English and Phonics
English and Phonics
At Mowbray Primary School, Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and that process begins in our Early Years Department, with our Nursery children. We aim to instill a love of reading for pleasure and for information across the curriculum, at the start of the learning journey.
For children to access the world of books, we use Phonics Bug, which is a highly interactive phonics scheme (a method used to teach reading by learning the sounds that groups of letters make when spoken), designed to help all children to read fluently and at speed, focusing on comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. It is based on Letters and Sounds, a phonics programme devised in 2007 by the Department for Education and Skills.
Phonics Bug begins in Nursery where children are introduced to short daily sessions through interactive activities.
In Reception, children:
- learn how to read sounds (phonemes) through daily phonics sessions,
- blend sounds out loud
- learn to identify letters (graphemes) to match the sounds to letters
- form the grapheme correctly, through daily practice in a variety of ways, both in the classroom and outdoors
In order to embed the daily phonics sessions and practice newly-acquired reading skills, our school Reading Scheme Bug Club, exactly matches a reading book to the individual pupil's phonic ability. This is important to promote success, confidence and independence as an early reader, in what is a very difficult and complicated process. Supporting the love for reading and success with Home/School reading books, children in Early Years are given a collection of 12 popular and award-winning books to read at home with family members - this forms our Core Book List. These books are shared regularly in school, giving children the opportunity to have a solid reading repertoire , with rich vocabulary, by the time they leave Reception class.
Alongside the reading curriculum, children begin the writing process in Nursery by making marks through tracing, letter formation in the air, sand, mud, through painting and on paper. Learning Outside the Classroom, a huge part of our school curriculum, is so important in Early Years. Mark-making develops into letter strings (in the correct sequence) which then become short words. At this point, children are encouraged to label familiar objects, write their names and begin to write short simple sentences, with full stops. Practising letter sounds, the alphabet and the names of letters (capital letters) daily, encourages children to think about letters and words making sense for the reader. While children learn to read and spell simple words such as ‘pin’ (known as a cvc word – consonant-verb-consonant), they will also learn to read and spell common irregular words (tricky words) such as ‘the’ which cannot be sounded out or blended, using phonics.