Phonics
Welcome to Digby the Tedder phonics page. Here, you'll find resources and ideas to support your child during this crucial learning phase.
Rocket Phonics Program
At Digby the Tedder Primary School, we utilise the Rocket Phonics program, a systematic synthetic phonics approach crafted by experts. This program combines digital and printed resources with two series of decodable reading books tailored to engage children at the beginning of their reading journey. These books include a mix of fiction and non-fiction, providing ample opportunities for practising phonics skills aligned with classroom lessons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf_9Fo69wVI&t=1s
Key Concepts
- Daily Instruction: Phonics is taught for a minimum of 30 minutes each day.
- Professional Development: All staff receive ongoing training in phonics.
- Structured Pathway: We follow a clear progression through the alphabetic code.
- Reading Readiness: Children are not expected to read texts beyond their current ability.
- Teaching Cycle: We implement a Teaching & Learning Cycle: revisit and review, teach, practice, apply.
- Levels of Instruction: Phonics is taught at letter-sound, word, sentence, and text levels.
- Focus on Details: Teachers emphasise accurate modelling and proper pencil grip.
What is Phonics?
Phonics teaches children to recognise phonemes, the smallest units of sound in words, aiding in both reading and spelling.
Three Main Components:
- Phonemes: English has about 44 phonemes, represented by letters or combinations of letters. We begin teaching with sounds like s, a, t, and p.
- Blending: Children learn to combine phonemes to form words, a key skill for reading.
- Segmenting: Conversely, children learn to break words down into their constituent phonemes, which is essential for spelling.
Challenges of Phonics
English phonics can be complex due to multiple graphemes representing a single phoneme and vice versa. For instance, ‘ch’ produces different sounds in ‘chip’, ‘school’ and ‘chef’.
Pronunciation
Children are encouraged to use ‘pure sounds’ when learning to read. This approach may differ from what many adults learned, but it's crucial for children's reading development. For further guidance on pronunciation, consider watching the YouTube video demonstrating these sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyGQY_GHtoQ&t=1s
Glossary of Terms
Click the link below to download our phonics glossary.
Resources for Parents and Carers
Click on the 'Rocket Phonics' logo below to access the Parents Information Page.
https://www.risingstars-uk.com/series/rising-stars-reading-planet/phonics-guide/faqs-and-resources
We’re excited to support your child’s reading journey!
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Parent Guide | [pdf 1MB] |
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Phonics Glossary (1) | [pdf 33KB] |
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Parents quotes
First, parents who engage their children in books prepare them to become committed and enthusiastic readers: they can transform their attitudes to reading.14 Their children learn to focus and share the enjoyment of the story; they learn how stories start and finish, and how a plot unravels and is resolved; they learn that books can transport them elsewhere. Without this, as Wolf said, they cannot experience
‘the exquisite joys of immersion in the reading life.’
Researchers in the United States who had looked at the impact of parents reading with their children quoted the following figures in a news release about their findings: Here’s how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1–2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3–5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.
Multiple studies suggest that enjoyment is associated with higher reading performance.20 The recent 2021 PIRLS data for England showed that the pupils who said they liked reading the most scored, on average, 34 points more than those who said they did not like reading.21 In effect, pupils who are reading regularly for enjoyment give themselves unofficial reading lessons, supporting their reading comprehension
Wide recreational reading expands pupils’ knowledge about the world and about language, as well as their understanding of subject-specific academic and technical vocabulary.23 Such knowledge eases their access to the whole curriculum. Higher performance in mathematics has also been found
Further, pupils who read regularly report heightened levels of social and emotional wellbeing.25 For many, reading is a form of relaxation, a place to escape everyday challenges, a source of entertainment. Reading allows readers to adopt new perspectives, develop empathy and become more socially conscious
Children who are good at reading do more of it: they learn more, about all sorts of things, and their expanded vocabulary, gained from their reading, increases their ease of access to more reading. Conversely, those for whom reading is difficult fall behind, not just in their reading but in all subjects and a vicious circle develops
Young children typically gain several new words a day, acquiring vocabulary at an ‘astonishing rate’.42 Yet by the time they start school, some children will have heard millions more words than others.43 The number of words a child has heard and can speak by the age of three is a predictor of later language development, so these early vocabulary gains are critically important.44 A language-rich environment is one in which adults talk with children throughout the day. The more children take part in conversations and discussion, the more they will understand once they can read and the more vocabulary and ideas they will have to draw on when they can write