Phonics & Early Reading at St Gregory’s
On this page, you can read more about our phonics and early reading curriculum at St Gregory’s.
Introduction to Early Reading
As you know, the ability to read and write is a vital skill for all children. Children practice many of the skills they need for reading and writing from a very early age. They do this through a wide range of activities and experiences, at home and in school. They explore and learn through singing and saying rhymes, making and listening to music, talking with others, sharing books with adults and other children, dressing up, experimenting with writing and using puppets and toys to retell and make up stories.
For children to make a good start in reading and writing, they need to have an adult listen to them and talk to them. Speaking and listening are the starting blocks for reading and writing.
What is Phonics?
Sounds in spoken language – the beginnings of phonics.
At St Gregory’s school all infant children take part in high quality, daily phonics sessions. Theseare fun sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games where the emphasis is on children’s participation. They learn to use their phonic knowledge for reading, writing and independent play.
From a very early stage, children develop an awareness of different sounds in spoken language. They develop an understanding that spoken words are made up of different sounds (phonemes) and they learn to match these phonemes to letters (graphemes).
Phonics is about children knowing how letters link to sounds (graphemes to phonemes), e.g. c as in ‘cat’, ll as in ‘fell’, ee as in ‘sheep’. Children use this phonics knowledge when they are reading and writing. This system has been shown to be a quicker and more efficient way for children to learn to read the words
on a page fluently and accurately. This also helps them greatly with their spelling.
Ways You Can Support Phonics and Early Reading at Home
• Make time to listen to your child talking – as you meet them from their setting or school, as you walk, or travel home by car, in the supermarket as you shop, at meal times, bath times, bedtimes – any time!
• Switch off the TV, radio and mobile phones – and really listen!
• Show that you are interested in what they are talking about – look at your child, smile, nod your head, ask a question or make a response to show that you really have been listening.
• Make a collection of different toy creatures – for example, a duck, a snake, an alien, say the sound it might make as you play together, for example, ‘quack-quack’, ‘ssssssss’, ‘yuk-yuk’, and encourage your child to copy you.
• Listen at home – switch off the TV and listen to the sounds, both inside and outside the home. Can your child tell you what sounds they heard, in the order in which they heard them?
• Play-a-tune – and follow me! Make or buy some simple shakers, drums and beaters, then play a simple tune and ask your child to copy. Have fun!
• Use puppets and toys to make up stories or retell known ones. Record your child telling the story and play it back to them.
Monster Phonics
At St Gregory’s we use a systematic phonics programme called Monster Phonics.
Monster Phonics is a highly engaging and structured synthetic phonics programme. It facilitates learning by allowing children to learn new graphemes by using monsters to group graphemes for recall and to provide an easy and fun memory cue for children. Monster Phonics matches the Reception EYFS framework and the KS1 spelling curriculum. It progresses from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills and ensures that prior knowledge is built on.
In the Key Documents section at the bottom of this page, you can find a “Monster Phonics Information Booklet”. This booklet will give you a clear picture of how we approach the teaching of phonics and word recognition and how, as a parent or carer, you can support and encourage your child at home. You can also follow the link below to view an online Monster Phonics guide for parents and carers.
