Phonics - Early Reading

At Trinity, we aim for our children to develop a love of reading through an exposure to high-quality texts, as well as through a well-structured phonics scheme, ‘SoundsWrite’, which teaches them to read independently at a rate that is perfectly and uniquely matched to them. The children are taught phonics upon their entry into EYFS through into Key Stage 1 with continuing consolidation work in Year 3. This provides our children with the skills needed to blend sounds for reading and segment words for writing and also enables them to read phonetically decodable books independently whilst developing confidence and fluency.

Phonics in Reception

We believe in teaching phonics from the very start of our children's entry into EYFS.  Whilst we understand that all children will learn at their own pace, our aim is to have our children fully competent in decoding, forming and writing all of their 'Initial Code' by the time they leave our Reception class.  This means identifying and learning all of the sounds each separate letter of the alphabet makes but also being able to blend these words to read them fluently and segment words into their sounds for accurate spelling.  The children also start to learn some 'digraphs' (two letters making one sound) which mainly constitutes pairs of consonants such as '/ck/th/ and /wh/. 

Click here to watch a brief snapshot of one of our EYFS phonics sessions.

Phonics for Parents of Year 1

In Year 1, our students consolidate and build on their learning from the EYFS curriculum.  As well as continuing to read and form words using their existing phonic knowledge, the children learn many more new digraphs and trigraphs through the SoundsWrite 'Extended Code' and also alternate phonemes for graphemes they have previously learnt.  Our aim is for the children to leave Year 1 fully prepared for the greater reading expectations of Year 2 and with a fully-fledged ability to both read and write decodable words and to decode unfamiliar words to the best of their ability. This culminates in our children taking the Year 1 Phonics Check in June each year, where we are delighted to see more and more of our children attain each year. 

Click here to watch a brief snapshot of one of our Year 1 phonics sessions.

 Phonics for Parents of Year 2

In Year 2, whilst building on the phonic knowledge the children obtained in both Reception and Year 1, our students engage with increasingly complex phonemes for certain graphemes and gain a greater exposure to decoding and segmenting polysyllabic words.  Their fluency, confidence and ability to decode longer words and pieces of text with ease grows throughout Year 2 as does their ability to segment longer words into syllables which they can segment and therefore spell accurately.  

Click here to watch a brief snapshot of one of our Year 2 phonics sessions.