Abington Vale Primary School

At Abington Vale, phonics is taught using the Ruth Miskin 'Read Write Inc' scheme. The scheme teaches the children to recognise letter sounds and then how to blend them to read words (combine the sounds to read a word). We also teach children to read words by sight, these are known as ‘red words’. In addition, the children are taught to spell words by segmenting, which means breaking words into their individual sounds, and writing down the sounds they can hear.

Fred is a frog that the children are introduced to when they first start their Phonics journey. He is not able to speak in whole words, only in sounds known as ‘Fred Talk’ to the children.

All children in Reception and Key Stage 1 have a phonics session every day in which they are carefully grouped based on regular assessment to ensure that every child is learning at a level appropriate for their needs. Each group is taught a different set of sounds that the children apply to the words in their reading book. The children bring home a copy of the text that they are reading in school that week alongside an unseen reading book. The children should be able to read most of the words in these books effortlessly to support the development of their fluency as well as their understanding. The children will still be challenged by a few words on each page that they may need to either ‘Fred Talk’ or ‘Fred in their head’ to read.

At the end of Year 1, all children in the Country take a reading test called a Phonics Screening Check which assess whether children can apply the sounds that they have been taught to individual words. They must read 40 real and 'nonsense' words to a familiar adult. The children practise reading both types of words regularly as part of their phonics sessions in school. Children are taught a strategy to support them to read unknown and nonsense words, they ‘Spot the Special Friends’, ‘Fred Talk’ and ‘Read the word’

Expectations of progress in Phonics: