At The Batt and St. Mary’s schools we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds systematic synthetic phonics programme. Phonics is how we teach children to read. It teaches children the link between letters and the sounds they represent and provides a strong foundation for reading.

We aim for our children to develop a strong orthographic map because being able to read most words fluently supports children in being free to focus on the meaning of what has been read. We combine daily high quality phonics teaching alongside sharing ambitious high quality texts with our children to promote a love of reading and to share with them the skills that are required to become lifelong readers.  

How We Teach Phonics at The Batt and St. Mary’s:

• We follow Essential Letters and Sounds’ four part lesson structure and teaching sequence: review, teach, practise and apply, which reduces cognitive load and supports our learners to 'read well, quickly'. The consistent structure of our lessons allows children to know what is coming next, what they need to do and how to achieve success. This makes it easier for children to learn the GPCs we are teaching (the alphabetic code) and to know how to apply this when reading.

• Whole class teaching allows all children to access Quality First Teaching, interventions are provided during the lesson by the class teacher to give targeted support for those children who need it.

• If a child requires further support, short and effective 1:1 interventions are provided that are tailored to their specific need, such as oral blending or GPC recognition. 

• We ensure that all phonics teaching is delivered consistently, effectively and enthusiastically. We model segmenting and blending unfamiliar words and reading with expression to our children. 

• We provide regular opportunities throughout the school day for children to apply their learning and practice taught sounds. 

• We use 100% decodable books in phonics lessons so that children can directly apply their new knowledge and phonic skills at an appropriate level. In phonics we will only ever ask children to read books that are made up of sounds that they have already been taught. This ensures that they are confident, successful readers.

• We encourage parental involvement by inviting all parents to attend phonics workshops and giving them resources to support their children with the development of their phonics skills. We provide parents with personalised information to help them to support their child’s reading journey, such as which sounds their child is working towards and what Harder to Read and Spell Words they are learning.