Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Our children are given access to a wide range of reading materials to ignite their interest.

We aim for children to enjoy books and begin to become independent and confident readers. They are taught to recognise a range of familiar and common words as well as to apply their phonic knowledge when reading. Many other reading related activities are used to support children’s learning.

Children learn the difference between speaking and writing, and between print and pictures. They are given a range of opportunities to write for different purposes. They work with the teacher to develop and write down their ideas and learn to use their phonics knowledge. Children are also encouraged to practise their developing writing skills in play-based and child initiated situations provided across the curriculum. Areas such as our writing area, role play area and writing shed encourage children to write for a range of purposes whilst engaging with their peers. Shopping lists, ingredients, potions and letters are just a few examples of the writing that is produced in EYFS over the course of a year.

Correct letter formation and orientation is taught as a discrete activity as well as using many other cross-curricular opportunities to develop fine and gross motor control. 

PHONICS SHED:

At St Peter's, our systematic synthetic phonics programme provides a systematic way to teach reading through synthetic phonics. Children are taught to decode by breaking down words into sounds as a way to “synthesize” the whole word from letters and sounds. By using the sequences, children are taught, through techniques such as our ‘Say It, Stretch It, Sound It,’ to decode by breaking down words into sounds as a way to segment and blend (“synthesise“) the whole word with the learning reinforced by the offline and online multi-sensory tasks and games.  Children learn how to hear, identify and write letter sounds as well as beginning to blend and segment sounds for reading and spelling. The initial stages of the programme not only introduce decodable CVC words, but encourage children to attempt to blend and segment longer words when they are ready – using differentiated activities and through regular assessment.  This is supported by a range of High Frequency Words (HFWs), including some partially decodable Common Exception Words (CEWs). These HFWs give children access to a wider range of texts, as they account for up to 50% of school-based texts.

Phonics Shed also aims to foster a love of reading and writing through its strong, character-based narratives and engaging, multi-sensory activities. The scheme includes over 160 teaching books linked to the Phonics Shed characters. The stories are engaging and relatable, so when they are not being shared by the teacher, the children can explore them independently or share them with adults and their peers. Many of the stories contain themes that link to other areas of the curriculum, often dealing with emotional well-being, communication, and empathy. In order to teach children to read, we use a set of fully decodable books, which progress completely in line with the Phonics Shed scheme. The books are all 12 pages long with five pages of decodable text, followed by a 'Questions About the Story' page for adults and, from Chapter 2 onwards, prefaced by a 'Key Vocabulary' page for the children to use before reading the story. The volume of text on each page increases as the scheme progresses. There is also a set of pre-reader books for your child to enjoy at the start of the year, before we officially start to teach the scheme. The decodable readers include the special Phonics Shed characters, in order to maintain consistency in the teaching of reading outside discrete phonics sessions. 

The progressive nature of the books we use allows children to read independently at every stage of the programme. Practising with such decodable texts will help to make sure children experience success and effectively develop phonic strategies. This is in line with the DfE Reading Framework (2021) and Ofsted Inspection Handbook (2021) which state that the sequence of reading books should show a cumulative progression in phonic knowledge that is matched closely to the school’s phonics programme.

Each GPC up to Chapter 4b Set 6 has a character linked to it, including digraphs and trigraphs, as well as having their own supporting stories and associated actions to aid consolidation. Characters up to the end of Chapter 4a have accompanying songs based on common nursery rhymes, too. The 26 lower-case formation characters each have an easy-to follow formation rhyme/phrase to support the children’s writing. These individual letter characters go on to support the digraph and trigraph characters – the formation characters introduced in Chapter 2 remain consistent throughout the scheme. The 26 individual lower-case alphabet characters have corresponding upper-case characters, with their own rhymes, as it is important for children to understand the correspondence between upper-case and lower-case letters in order to properly decode all text.

The Phonics Shed SSP programme is supported by online games and resources that every child will access to through once they have received their login details. Games support the learning progression through each chapter with the game sequences progressing and supporting learning of each grapheme-phoneme correspondence in a variety of ways. Children can access the games as a follow up assignment to in-class phonics teaching, and as independent online activities which can be played in school or at home. Throughout the year, we will also assign your child to specific games and decodable e-books as part of a homework task. The children can earn themselves points to act as an incentive.

PROGRESSION:

Phonics Shed is split into four chapters:

Chapter 1

Focuses on developing vital pre-reading speaking, listening and motor skills. It is divided into a two-week introduction and nine interlinking elements.

Chapter 2

Introduces the first grapheme-phoneme pairs, plus the 26 letters of the alphabet and their corresponding capital letters, and several simple digraphs, including an extended range of double letters. It also begins to introduce the concept of best fit; making an informed choice between alternative GPCs based on the most common placement in words. Using the formation characters from Chapter 2, by the end of Chapter 3 the children will know at least one grapheme for each phoneme (except /zh/). 

Chapter 3

The scheme progresses to more complex digraphs and trigraphs and introduces more best fit rules. Children begin to spell longer words and read more complex texts, including questions.

Chapter 4 

Focuses on alternative GPCs and best fit rules. It is split into three parts: Chapter 4a covers alternative graphemes for known phonemes, Chapter 4b covers alternative pronunciations for known graphemes, and Chapter 4c looks at spelling patterns, best fit and less common GPCs.

Phonics Shed is used throughout your child's reception year up to the middle of year 2. During year 1, Phonics Shed is taught alongside Spelling Shed, which ensures all word-reading and spelling objectives from the National Curriculum are met, while preparing children for their Phonics screening check during the summer term. Phonics Shed lessons are daily, whereas Spelling Shed lessons are weekly. Spelling Shed runs all the way up to year 6.

PHONICS SCREENING CHECK:

Phonics Screening Check A statutory phonic knowledge screening for Year 1 pupils was introduced in 2011/12 in England. This test is conducted orally and 1:1 with a teacher, lasting 5-10 minutes. The test usually takes place in the summer term of Year 1. The phonics screening check contains 40 words divided into two sections of 20 words. Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words. The DfE state: “The purpose of the phonics screening check will be to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard.” Children who have not reached this level should receive extra support from their school to ensure they can improve their decoding skills and will then retake the phonics screening check, usually in Year 2.