Phonics & Early Reading

Screenshot_2025-03-07_at_13.25.42-removebg-preview

PHONICS at Dean Bank

our aims for early reading and phonics

At Dean Bank Primary School, we aim to:

teach the key conceptual knowledge and skills
to ensure that our children have the best start to their early reading journey
Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information

phonics at dean bank
primary school

What is Sounds-Write?

At Dean Bank Primary and Nursery School, we teach phonics using a linguistic phonics programme called Sounds-Write – a proven Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme validated by the Department for Education. It is based on the science of reading and provides a structured, cumulative, and code-oriented approach to teaching reading and spelling. It starts with what children learn naturally, the sounds of their own language, and teaches them to represent those sounds in writing. Sounds-Write is a complete phonics curriculum that teaches the skills, concepts, and code knowledge necessary for children to read and spell.

Students are taught four key concepts:

Letters are symbols that represent sounds
Sounds can be spelled using 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters (dog, street, night, dough)
The same sound can be spelled in different ways (rain, break, stay, gate)
The same spelling can represent different sounds (head, seat, break)

Students are taught to master three key skills:

Segmenting – the ability to pull apart the individual sounds in words
Blending – the ability to push sounds together to build words
Phoneme manipulation – the ability to insert sounds into and delete sounds out of words. This skill is necessary to test out alternatives for spellings that represent more than one sound.

Screenshot_2025-03-07_at_13.24.31-removebg-preview

Screenshot_2025-03-07_at_13.25.23-removebg-preview

What do children learn in Reception?

Children in Reception begin with the Initial Code where they practice all three key skills whilst learning the one-to-one sound-spelling correspondences and securing their understanding of key concept 1. This builds up confidence and phonic knowledge enabling them to read and spell a wide range of words and sentences.

At first, children learn to read and spell simple one-syllable words with a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) sound structure (for example, ‘sat’). By the end of Reception, they can read and write one-syllable words with up to five, or even six, sounds such as ‘twist’, ‘grand’ or ‘scraps’.

Children also develop their knowledge of key concept 2 as they learn to read and spell words containing some sounds spelled with two letters (the sound /sh/ in ‘fish’ or the sound /th/ in ‘thin’, for example) as well as the three-letter spelling < tch > for the sound /ch/ in ‘catch’. Key concept 3 is introduced towards the end of Reception as the students learn about a small number of sounds that can be spelled in more than one way (for example, the sound /k/ spelled as < k > in ‘kit’, < c > in ‘cat’ and < ck > ‘pick’).

What do children learn from Year 1?

Once the Initial Code has been mastered, children continue to practice all three key skills whilst learning the Extended Code and developing key concepts 2, 3 and 4. Children in Years 1 and 2 develop their code knowledge through explicit, systematic teaching of the Extended Code units. Polysyllabic words are introduced in Year 1.

When is Sounds-Write taught?

Daily phonics sessions begin as soon as children start their Reception year. Phonics sessions might be only ten minutes long in the first few days. However, by the end of Reception, this will have built to about an hour a day, across two sessions. Children in years 1 an 2 will have a 30-minute Sounds-Write session every day.Every Sounds Write lesson will follow a three part structure, to consolidate previous learning, learn new content and practice and apply what they have learnt.

Some children require more time and practice when learning to read and spell, and they are supported through ‘keep-up’ and ‘catch-up’ intervention sessions in addition to the whole class phonics sessions.

Screenshot_2025-03-07_at_13.26.11-removebg-preview

What books or reading schemes are used?

Children who are beginning to learn to read use phonically-controlled books that we call ‘decodable readers’. These books are carefully written to focus on the code the children have been taught in phonics lessons so far. Decodable readers allow the children to practice their developing skills and they will be sent home to give even more opportunities for practice. At Dean Bank Primary and Nursery School, we use decodable readers that match the scope and sequence of the Sounds-Write programme. Once children have developed their skills and their code knowledge, they begin to move away from decodable readers and read a wider range of books.

Parents/carers are asked to support their children by hearing them read aloud at least three times a week at home. We hold regular phonics workshops for parents throughout the year to equip them with the skills and confidence needed to support their children as they learn to read. We have also adapted the 1:1 reading guide that staff use in school for parents to use at home to ensure children receive a consistent approach. Below there are videos which will support parents/carers with implementing this guide.