At Belle Vue we believe that phonics should be taught in a systematic way within lessons that are engaging, interactive and enjoyable for all of our children.  Learning phonics is an essential skill used in reading and writing. The roots of reading and writing can be found in phonics and our children's ability to make links between spoken and written language.  Being well equipped with phonological understanding and strategies to decode and access the world around them, allows our children to experience growth, contributing to their successes in reading and writing.

Phonics is a way of teaching your child to read and write by helping them to hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another.

Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words.

In phonics lessons, children are taught three main things:

• GPCs: They are taught GPCs. This stands for grapheme phoneme correspondences. This simply means that they are taught all the phonemes in the English language and ways of writing them down. These sounds are taught in a particular order. The first sounds to be taught are s, a, t, p, i, n.
• Blending: Children are taught to be able to blend. This is when children say the sounds that make up a word and are able to merge the sounds together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is vital in learning to read.
• Segmenting: Children are also taught to segment. This is the opposite of blending. Children are able to say a word and then break it up into the phonemes that make it up. This skill is vital in being able to spell words.

At Belle Vue Primary School, we use Monster Phonics to teach phonics. 

Monster Phonics is a highly-engaging, multisensory, structured, synthetic phonics programme. This is a DfE validated scheme, which covers six stages of early reading development. It accelerates learning by allowing children to learn new graphemes by using monsters to group graphemes for recall and to provide an easy and fun memory cue for children. It also uses colour-coding to highlight the grapheme when teaching a new grapheme. Once taught and secure, the colour is removed.

We are confident that the children are going to love Monster Phonics, and that high engagement and interest created by the programme will further support the children’s learning. Throughout the programme, the children will revisit any of the above phases to consolidate and embed their phonic knowledge.

Phonics progression Reception to Year 2 

Progress in phonics is continually reviewed to ensure that children access work at an appropriate level and their needs in phonics are being met. You will receive updates from your class teacher to find out more about your child's next steps in phonics and how you can help at home.

Within EYFS and Key Stage 1, assessment of phonics against the Monster Phonics phases is carried out on a regular basis. A statutory phonics screening check is carried out in June of Year 1 also. The purpose of the screening check is to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard. 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.

Children who do not meet the required standard for the check in Year 1 will enter again in Year 2.

There are many engaging activities and games that you can enjoy playing with your child at home. One of the best ways to support your child’s understanding of phonics is to share traditional nursery rhymes and stories and talking together about the words that rhyme.

Children at Belle Vue will receive phonics texts and other reading books weekly. We recommend that you spend around 5-10 minutes daily, looking at these books and other texts that you have at home. 'Little and often' is key and it is best to do this at a time where your child will be the most engaged and motivated. Sometimes this may be during breakfast, after teatime or even before bedtime. Take turns to enjoy the texts as your child will learn so much for you. Model using expression, pausing in the right places, putting on characters voices and you will be amazed how much your child will copy! Additionally, you will find at the front or back of the book, tips and ideas for you to work through. It is very important for your child to show good comprehension and understanding about the texts they are reading, as well as the reading itself. Ask them lots of questions and talk through any words they do not understand.

Encourage your child to read the 'tricky words'. Tricky words contain letters that don't represent their normal sounds, and these are taught separately. Children can use their phonics to help them read part of the words, but tricky parts will need to be learned by sight.

There are a range of online resources that provide fun and engaging games and activities for children to complete with you at home.