Phonics

At St Columba C of E Primary School we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier.

Daily synthetic phonics lessons begin in Reception and continue throughout until children have mastered the phonics code. We follow Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS)

Here you can find more information on what ELS is and how you can support your child at home.

What is Synthetic Phonics?

Synthetic phonics is a way of teaching children to read. It teaches children how sounds are represented by written letters. Children are taught to read words by blending these sounds together to make words.

For example, they will be taught that the letters ‘m-a-t’ blend together to make ‘mat’. A synthetic phonics programme, such as ELS, is a structure for teaching these sounds in a certain order to build up children’s learning gradually. It is used daily during Reception and Year 1 to teach all the sounds in the English language.

How is ELS taught in schools?

With ELS, there is a daily phonics lesson where the teacher teaches a new sound, or reviews sounds learned earlier in the week. This is shown to the class on the whiteboard.

Children learn the letters that represent the sounds. They are then asked to read words and sentences with the new sounds in. Children will also practise writing the letters that represent the sounds.

What order are the sounds taught in?

New sounds are taught each day, with some review days and weeks to help children practise what they’ve learned. See guides outlining phonemes for each phase.

Phase 2 Sounds

Phase 3 Sounds

Phase 5 Sounds

How should the sounds be pronounced?

Children learn to read letters or groups of letters by saying the sounds they represent. Pronounce the sounds as you would say them within a word. Make sure you don’t add ‘uh’ onto the end, so for ‘m’ say ‘mm’ not ‘muh’ and for ‘l’ say ‘ull’ not ‘luh’. The videos below show you how to pronounce the sounds.

ELS: Phase 2 pronunciation

ELS: Phase 3 pronunciation

ELS: Phase 5 pronunciation

How can I help at home?

Practising the sounds

· You can help your child practise the sounds they have been learning at school. Download the charts linked above (under What order are the sounds taught in?) so you can see the list of sounds in the order they’ll be taught. You can show these to your child along with the picture to help them remember.

Blending

· After children learn to read some sounds separately, they can start blending them together to form simple words. Take a look at the video below for ideas on how you can practise word blending with your child.

Reading decodable books

· Your child will bring home reading books with words that use the sounds they have been learning that week. You may hear these reading books called ‘decodable books’. Use the prompts inside the front and back covers to enjoy the book together and help your child practise reading.

Phonics: How to blend sounds to read words | Oxford Owl