Phonics

What is phonics?

Phonics is making connections between the sounds (phonemes) of our spoken words and the letters that are used to write them down.

At Surrey Street Primary School, we strive to ensure that all children become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. We believe this is achievable through a combination of strong, high quality, discrete phonics teaching combined with a rich language approach that promotes a ‘Reading for Pleasure’ culture. The model of the simple view of reading divides the teaching of reading into the recognition of words on the page and the development of language comprehension.

At Surrey Street Primary School, we teach reading through Rocket Phonics/Boost, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Rocket Phonics/Boost progression. It builds upon previous phonics provision and encapsulates the formula you need for foundational literacy success in our school. Rocket Phonics combines the alphabetic code knowledge and skills that are needed to learn to read and write, with language-rich children’s literature. This approach will embed phonics in context, and support a love of reading and writing from the outset. It is a programme to ensure every child keeps up and not catches up and builds on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.

At Surrey Street Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.