Phonics
What is Phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children how to read and write. It helps children hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another in the English language.
Written language can be compared to a code, so knowing the sounds of individual letters and how those letters sound when they’re combined will help children decode words as they read.
Understanding phonics will also help children know which letters to use when they are writing words.
Phonics involves matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. For example, the sound k can be spelled as c, k, ck or ch.
Teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together helps them decode unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out.
For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”.
Phonics is taught systematically throughout EYFS and Key Stage 1.
Children in Year 1 will take a statutory government 'Phonic Check' which will help to asses whether they can decode real, and alien words accurately.
At Mount Pleasant we teach Phonics primarily through Letters and Sounds and supplemented it with approaches and resources from by Jolly Phonics.
Useful Phonics websites and links: