Phonics at Measham​

"Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body." Sir Richard Steele
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We use the Sounds-Write scheme as our approach to phonics. Sounds-Write is a quality first phonics programme acknowledged by the DfE as meeting all of its criteria for an effective phonics teaching programme. It is an exciting and highly successful approach to the teaching of reading, spelling and writing.

Sounds-Write is effective in teaching pupils to read, spell and write because it starts from what all children know from a very early age – the sounds of the English language. From there, children are taught in small steps how each of the 44 sounds in the English language can be spelt. Children begin by learning simple alphabet code(EYFS) and then progress through to more complex coding(Years 1 and 2)

All staff who teach the program have been certified by Sounds-Write. The children are taught in classes or small groups to ensure targeted delivery and maximum impact.

The programme teaches the following concepts:

• that letters are spellings of sounds: visual language is a representation of spoken language
• that a spelling can contain one, two, three, or four letters - examples are: s a t, f i sh, n igh t and w eigh t
• that there is more than one way of spelling most sounds: the sound 'ae', spelt as in 'name', can be represented as in 'table', in 'rain', in 'eight', in 'play', and so on
• that many spellings can represent more than one sound: can be the sound 'e' in 'head', 'a-e' in 'break', or 'ee' in 'seat'

Reading and spelling also require expertise in the skills necessary to make use of the alphabet code and pupils need to be able to:

• segment, or separate sounds in words
• blend, or push sounds together to form words
• manipulate sounds: take sounds out and put sounds into words

Sounds-Write provides opportunities for practising these skills on an everyday basis until pupils achieve the automaticity required for fluent reading and spelling.

​Find out more by watching the following video: https://www.sounds-write.co.uk/page-96-video.aspx
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Below is a link for a free Sounds-Write course for parents, to help you understand how we teach reading and spelling in school in the early years.

Phonics Parent Workshop

Miss Moore has put together this presentation for parents, to explain how we teach Phonics at Measham CE.

Watch a phonics session! 

Miss Moore demonstrates a simple phonics lesson. 

​EYFS and Year 1 parents - click on the image below to help you remember the pure sounds in the Initial Code.