The emphasis of our reading curriculum is on promoting a love of stories and rhymes and providing a wide breadth of reading experiences. Children at all stages of development are taught systematic phonics from phase 1 within our Orchard curriculum.  

The foundation for early phonological awareness includes being able to listen and discriminate between sounds, to be able to identify words that do and do not rhyme, that do and do not begin or end with the same sound and to understand the concept of syllables within words (Kilpatrick 2015).  

Phonics is one of the links between spoken language and learning to decode in literacy. It means; being able to hear, recognise and play with the sounds of a spoken language. We recognise that a grasp of phase 1 phonics is vital to ensure that children achieve success with reading. Phase 1 is the first stage of phonics and lays the foundation for future phonics learning. The primary focus is on developing speaking and listening skills to enable children to become ready for developing oral blending and segmenting skills. These skills are fundamental for effective communication and language development, as children learn to distinguish and produce different sounds, which is the basis for understanding and using language. Phase 1 phonics is taught across the whole school right from entry into school until they are ready to access phonics at phase two and beyond. We focus on the foundational listening skills that children will need to build upon in order to learn to read and later, write. 

We use the validated scheme Time for Phonics. This aligned with the Orchard’s values of every child being individual and requiring their own pathway whilst simultaneously being challenged whilst engaged. The philosophy from Time for Phonics is ‘Borne out of hands-on, recent classroom experience combined with expert phonics knowledge. It is based on the principle that children learn best when they are engaged, involved, and taught in ‘short bursts’, avoiding asking young children to sit and listen for long periods’ and ‘We have devised our lessons with all of this in mind, using bright, engaging games and activities that bring joy to phonics learning’.  

Our phase 1 activities are arranged under the following aspects: 

• Aspect 1: General sound discrimination – environmental sounds 
• Aspect 2: General sound discrimination – instrumental sounds 
• Aspect 3: General sound discrimination – body percussion 
• Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme 
• Aspect 5: Alliteration 
• Aspect 6: Voice sounds 
• Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting 

Here at The Orchard we are passionate about the importance of our phase one work because it: 

• Lays the foundation for later letter learning and word reading 
• Develops listening and understanding skills 
• Encourages children to explore sounds around them, engaging with the natural world, musical instruments and their own bodies 
• Learning through play, experimentation and exploration  
• Develops skills in assigning meaning to different sounds  
• Encourages children to expand their vocabulary  
• Supports many areas of learning 
• Continues to support subsequent phonics phases  

We also recognise that if phase one hasn’t been covered sufficiently and implemented effectively our children may have issues or difficulties when they start their phonics journey at phase 2 level and beyond. Some of these being: 

• Difficulty distinguishing between different sounds they hear 
• Issues with listening and understanding skills 
• Issues with attention & understanding skills – it may seem like they don’t hear you, or they won’t respond 
• Delay in speaking skills 
• Issues with identifying individual phonemes 
• Difficulty recognising initial sounds in words 
• Issues with blending for reading, and segmenting for writing 

Phonics from phase one is taught from step 1 to step 14 of our Orchard curriculum. All children have daily phonics lessons across the school week and this can be seen within our timetabling for each class. To support our phase one work in school we use the Time for Phonics Scheme using a combination of play based and sensory teaching. Children at the phase one level will be supported to progress through the phase one work through lots of different approaches that meet their individual learning and communication needs.  

Children access phase two and onwards when they reach step 15 within our curriculum and then carry on their reading journey through the use of Time for Phonics. Our approach to teaching phonics is through play, sensory learning, games, intensive interaction, rhymes and songs in conjunction with more formal learning styles – revisit, review, teach and apply. 

Phonics Scheme: 

The phonics scheme we follow is Time for Phonics. This is accessed online through web resources, digital content etc. 

Engagement profile learners (Step 1-10): 

Children working at steps 1-9 work on the phase one curriculum daily through a bespoke format that supports sensory learning, intensive interaction, developing communication and strengthening children’s auditory skills. These areas of learning are the early stages of the seven aspects of phase one.  

Semi-Formal Learners (Steps 10+): 

Children working at step 10 through to 14 work more formally on the seven aspects of phase one phonics and access specific Time for Phonics resources. When children reach step 15 they begin phase two phonics.  

Assessment & Recording:  

All children are assessed within phonics on an individual and on-going basis, observations and assessments are recorded on EfL along with photo/video evidence.  

All semi-formal learners will be tracked through the aligned ‘tracker’ program affiliated with The Time for Phonics Scheme. The phonics tracker is a bought in tracker for phonics, high frequency words and phonics screening check. It helps to simplify the assessment of phonics by instantly recording whether a child can successfully pronounce the phoneme or word, tracking progress across the primary English curriculum. It allows teachers to easily see gaps in children’s knowledge in order to efficiently plan for next steps and interventions.  

Formal assessments will take place at the end of every half term for all  in which teaching staff will assess children and update EfL/tracker.  

Reading Scheme: 

Our reading scheme is reading stars phonics which is aligned with the Time for Phonics scheme. We have phase one books available for children this is appropriate for and from phase two all children will have a reading book that is linked to their individual sound knowledge. Children take part in reading practice within a phonics session and as part of their weekly input either at the start of the day or end of the day on a 1-1 with a member of their class team. This is our guided reading.   

Staff will record what a child is reading or what has been read using an individual recording for each child. For some children they may read a book for a longer time and need to repeat reading books but this will be recorded as part of their reading journey. Staff will follow the reading scheme in time for phonics and follow the reading progression guide. 

Staff will share books online via the ransom readers digital platform and the digital version of the reading scheme from Time for Phonics this will support reading at home once the child is fluent in their book. Children will only be asked to read a book at home once staff are confident they are able to read it in school. This will vary for each child.  Parents will receive the ‘How to read at home with my child’ information sheet; this focuses on ensuring that parents do not try and use other ways of teaching their child how to read and staying consistent with the ways of teaching within school.

Time for Phonics – The Orchard school are currently using Time for Phonics as a phonics scheme. This is used in conjunction with our whole school phonics bespoke curriculum.