Phonics at West Horndon Primary School
At West Horndon Primary School, we believe that reading is the bedrock for all academic learning, and a vital skill for ongoing achievement, fulfilment and communication. Therefore, it is imperative that children are given the best start in their reading journey, which we deliver through our phonics teaching. Essential Letters and Sounds is a DfE approved systematic synthetic phonics programme which is designed to teach children how to read through the act of decoding and blending.
We provide consistent teaching, giving opportunities for repetition and practice on a daily basis. Reading books will be selected by teachers to match the sounds that are currently being taught, in order that parents can support their children in consolidating learning.
Please visit https://essentiallettersandsounds.org/ for full details.
grapheme-sheet-phase-2.pdf
grapheme-sheet-phase-3.pdf
grapheme-sheet-phase-5.pdf
mnemonics-and-rhymes-to-support-els.pdf
Supporting Reading at Home
- Children will only read books that are entirely decodable, this means that they should be able to read these books as they already know the code contained within the book.
- We only use pure sounds when decoding words (no ‘uh’ after the sound)
- We want children to practise reading their book at least 3 times a week working on these skills -
We must use pure sounds when we are pronouncing the sounds and supporting children in reading words. If we mispronounce these sounds, we will make reading harder for our children. Please watch the videos below for how to accurately pronounce these sounds.