At Braywood CE First School, we use a rigorous and systematic approach to teaching phonics to ensure the children develop the skills and knowledge they need to become confident, fluent readers who have a love of books.

We have a whole-school approach and use Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) in Early Years and Key Stage 1. ELS is a Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) programme, validated by the Department for Education. The programme has been developed to ensure every child can read well, quickly.

The principles of ELS are based upon:

• the delivery of whole-class, high-quality first teaching with well-structured daily lesson plans
• the use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents
• the use of consistent resources that support effective teaching
• repetition and reinforcement of learning
• regular and manageable assessment to ensure that all children 'keep up' rather than 'catch up

ELS whole-class, daily phonics teaching begins from the first weeks in Early Years. Through the rigorous ELS teaching programme, children will build an immediate understanding of the relationship between the sounds they can hear and say (phonemes) and the written sounds (graphemes).

We teach the children to:

Decode (read) by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together

Encode (write) by segmenting each sound to write words accurately

ELS is designed on the principle that children should 'keep-up' rather than 'catch-up'. Interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher to immediately target any child who is struggling with the new knowledge. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used. These interventions are short, specific and effective.

Adults follow the teaching sequence outlined in the ELS handbook and deliver four-part sessions to allow the children to revisit previously taught sounds, learn new phonemes, and then practice and apply knowledge.

• All phonics sessions build on children's prior learning and ensure all children are involved throughout the session.
• New learning is quickly embedded because children are motivated and engaged throughout. 
• All adults ensure children are actively involved during the phonics lessons.
• All staff use 'robot arms' and 'blending hands' to model the segmenting and blending of a word.
• There is equal weighting of opportunities to read and write during the phonics sessions.
• Staff ensure that phonics teaching is embedded and is therefore applied beyond the sessions through whole class and independent reading, home reading and through phonics displays and continuous provision.
• Adults articulate phonemes using pure sounds
• Adults model expectations and give quality oral feedback regarding application of prior learning, presenation and letter formation

Early Reading

As our children start their reading journey, they will have materials that are closely matched to their phonics knowledge. Reading books mirror or supplement the texts used in phonics lessons. These books are matched to the ELS phonics programme and will ensure that our children are presented with reading material to match their phonic knowledge and improve their fluency and reading confidence. In this way, children will be encouraged to use their phonics skills and knowledge as their primary reading strategy.  As children find that they can decode words quickly and independently, they will read more and more so that the number of words they can read automatically builds up. 

Supporting Reading at Home

Children will only read books that are entirely decodable, this means that they should be able to read these books as they already know the code contained withing the book.

We only use pure sounds when decoding words (no 'uh' after the sound)

We want children to practise reading their book 4 times across the week working on these skills:

Decode - sounding out and blending to read the word

Fluency - reading words with less obvious decoding

Expression - using intonation and expression to bring the text to life!

Adults must use pure sounds when pronouncing the sounds and supporting children reading words. If we mispronounce these sounds, we will make reading harder for our children.

Please see the video links below for how to accurately pronounce these sounds.