Phonics 

At Dunalley Primary School, we use Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) to teach phonics. ELS is a systematic synthetic phonics programme validated by the Department of Education. It provides a clear and progressive approach to the teaching of phonics throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1.

Our phonics journey begins in Nursery, where children begin to develop the essential listening and speaking skills that provide the foundations of learning to read. Children in Pre-School learn to identify environmental and instrumental sounds and explore body percussion, rhythm and rhyme. They also begin to develop oral blending skills, preparing them for more formal phonics teaching in Reception. 

From the beginning of Reception, children take part in daily, whole-class phonics lessons. Children are taught to recognise sounds and the letters that represent them, blend sounds together to read words and use their growing phonic knowledge to support their reading and writing. 

Daily phonics lessons continue throughout Year 1 and further through the school to ensure all children become confident, fluent readers. 

A key principle of ELS is that children should 'keep up' rather than 'catch up'. Interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher and any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support. Where further support is required, targeted one-to-one interventions are used to help children secure their knowledge. 

Regular assessment is an important part of ELS, with children formally assessed each half term alongside ongoing assessment during daily lessons. This information is used to identify any gaps in learning and to target additional support where it is needed. By identifying and addressing these gaps promptly, we aim to ensure that every child keeps up with their learning and continues to make good progress. 

Through consistent, high-quality phonics, our aim is for every child at Dunalley Primary School to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to become a fluent, enthusiastic and successful reader. 

Working Together with Families

The support children receive at home is an important part of their reading journey. We work closely with parents and carers to help them understand how to pronounce phonemes (sounds) correctly and provide strategies they can use to develop their child’s reading at home.

More information about ELS and how you can support your child at home can be found here.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/essential-letters-and-sounds/

Click here to view the ELS Parents’ Presentation

Progression of reading through Key Stage 1 and 2 

As the children move through Key Stage 1, phonics remains a high priority. Once the children have mastered the phonic code then daily guided reading sessions focus on retrieval and higher order reading skills such as inference and the development of vocabulary using a range of texts – fiction, non-fiction and poetry.  

Children are actively encouraged to read at home. The books that children in Key Stage 1 will initially bring home are all phonetically decodable. Families are encouraged to allow children to read this book 2 to 3 times during the week to ensure fluency and comprehension. The book also contains activities to undertake at home to support reading skills. Once children have mastered the phonic code, they are provided with appropriate colour banded books that they can read with fluency and accuracy to develop reading for meaning.  

As their reading progresses through lower Key Stage 2 and into upper Key Stage 2, we work on developing children’s vocabulary and comprehension skills through structured whole class guided reading sessions. Activities are carefully planned to ensure that reading stamina also develops as children progress through the school. Our class books ensure that all our pupils are exposed to high quality challenging texts. These have been carefully selected to ensure that children experience a range of quality literature. This allows for an immersion in more sophisticated vocabulary and therefore helps them to build their own vocabulary that will be wider, challenging and more specific. 

Our children in Key Stage 2 are also encouraged to read at home and select books from a range of sources. In lower Key Stage 2, the children are guided to books that are colour banded to support their reading fluency and comprehension before being able to select freely from our extensive collections of books in our class and year group libraries. Children who require additional repetition of phonics to consolidate their understanding of the sounds at the start of Key Stage 2, are provided with appropriate targeted support. 

To ensure the best outcome for all our pupils, assessment is used continuously to identify any child who is in danger of falling behind. Targeted interventions are used to help these children ‘catch up’ and their progress is carefully monitored by class teachers and school leaders.