Phonics/Early Reading

Phonics teaching

At Spurcroft, we aim for all of our children to leave our school as highly skilled readers. We do this by providing them with high-quality systematic phonics, which is taught daily, as well as access to a range of high quality texts in our classrooms and library and sending books home which match to children's specific phonic knowledge.

Read Write Inc is a comprehensive program designed to develop children’s phonic knowledge, reading and writing skills. The children are assessed half-termly and placed in groups that match their reading level. We currently run 10 groups from Reception to Year 2, which focus on teaching sounds, learning to blend words, and reading with fluency and expression.

The ethos of the program centres on the five P’s – Purpose, Participation, Praise, Partners and Pace. The Reading Teachers work hard to ensure this is at the heart of learning and children know what to expect from each session because of this. 

As a result of the successful implementation of the program, our children are able to:

• Participate actively in an engaging phonics session, where they are applying their sound knowledge into spelling and reading instantly.
• Read with increased ease, fluency and enjoyment to a range of audiences – peers, teachers and parents.
• Successfully use a range of strategies to write with independence.
• See themselves as fantastic readers and writers who can access the whole curriculum with confidence.

It is vital that children learn to say the sounds correctly. This video shows all the correct pronunciations.

We have produced some parent information booklets to provide you with more information about how your child will learn to read. Below you will also find a letter formation chart with the rhymes that we use to help children learn how to form their letters correctly. 

Oxford Owl - Supporting Resources for home

The Oxford Owl website has lots of short films ,resources and worksheets, aimed at parents to support your child with their phonics development at home. The link for this website is:

Oxford Owl Parent Page

Phonics Colour Groups

All F2 (Reception) and Year 1 pupils and those Year 2 pupils that are still on the phonics programme, are assessed at the end of every half term and placed in colour groups. The groups are based on the children's reading level and ensure that all children working within each group are of similar reading ability. Within these groups, children review previously taught sounds, as well as learning the next set of sounds. All reading and writing tasks are focused on learning and using these sounds correctly. Where a group is working on the same set of sounds that they have taught in a previous group, the focus is on reading and writing longer words containing the same sounds and using these in more challenging texts and writing tasks. 

Below is a list of the colour groups that we have at school and the sounds each group is working on:

Ditty - m,a,s,d,t,i,n,p,g,o,c,k,u,b,f,e,l,h,r,j,v,y,w,z,x,sh,th,ch,qu,ng,nk

Red Ditty - m,a,s,d,t,i,n,p,g,o,c,k,u,b,f,e,l,h,r,j,v,y,w,z,x,sh,th,ch,qu,ng,nk

Green -ay,ee,igh,oo,oo,ar,or,air,ir,ou,oy

Purple - ay,ee,igh,oo,oo,ar,or,air,ir,ou,oy

Pink - ay,ee,igh,oo,oo,ar,or,air,ir,ou,oy

         - ea,oi,a-e,i-e,o-e,u-e,aw,are,er,ow,ai,oa,ew,ire,ear,ure,tion,tious/cious

Orange - ea,oi,a-e,i-e,o-e,u-e,aw,are,er,ow,ai,oa,ew,ire,ear,ure,tion,tious/cious

Yellow - ea,oi,a-e,i-e,o-e,u-e,aw,are,er,ow,ai,oa,ew,ire,ear,ure,tion,tious/cious

Blue - ea,oi,a-e,i-e,o-e,u-e,aw,are,er,ow,ai,oa,ew,ire,ear,ure,tion,tious/cious

Grey - - ea,oi,a-e,i-e,o-e,u-e,aw,are,er,ow,ai,oa,ew,ire,ear,ure,tion,tious/cious

Reading to your child

Stories provide a wealth of language we don’t use in everyday talk.

The more stories, poems and nursery rhymes children know well, the more easily they will be able to understand what they read, when they can read.

One of the most important things you can do as a parent at home is read to your child.

This helps develop an enjoyment for stories and the motivation for learning to read themselves.

Loving stories is important because children who love stories want to read stories for themselves. Children who read a lot become better readers.