Phonics at Alvaston Infant School
Our exciting and engaging approach to phonics is delivered using the Fresh Phonics approach. This is a multi-sensory approach that incorporates a range of pedagogies and practices to motivate and engage the children. This approach to phonics aims to empower our children to develop a bank of Grapheme-Phoneme (GPC) correspondences, which are supported through images, actions and rhymes, to be able to automatically recognise these and read words with increasing fluency and automaticity. This supports our children to make rapid progress in their phonics so that they can read with confidence and unlock a child's love of reading. Our Phonics Progression Document outlines the pace of learning in phonics from Reception through to Year 2. This document is used to assess track where the children are in relation to their learning. When children are identified to be at risk of falling behind the pace of learning, intervention support is put in place through a Personalised Phonics Intervention which is done on a 1:1 basis. These children may also take part in a Reading Recovery programme which focusses on developing word reading and comprhension skills.
New Grapheme-Phoneme correspondences are typically taught over two days with day one focussing on children developing their decoding skills so they are able to recognise and read the focus GPC in words. For the highest 80% of children, day two will focus on developing the children's encoding skills so that they can apply their knowledge of the new GPC to spelling words. For the weakest 20% of readers, day two will be another reading session with a range of games and activities employed to compliment this teaching.
Please see below for examples of how we teach both day one and day two of our phonics and visit the website www.freshphonics.com for more information on the Fresh Phonics approach.
