Twinkl Phonics & Rhino Readers
We have chosen to follow the Twinkl Phonics Scheme which is a full comprehensive, synthetic phonics teaching programme designed to be used from Reception to Year 2. Our lessons will be delivered through the stories and adventures of Sam, Kit and their family. The scheme builds and develops the skills and understanding children need to become effective, independent readers and writers.
Intent To train up a child...
To have a Phonics programme that clearly outlines the knowledge, skills and understanding children will develop to read and write effectively.
Implementation - To achieve our intentions, around the school you will see:
- Well-planned and structured phonics lessons that follow a 5-part pattern to support the differing needs of the learners.
- A successful and stimulating phonics environment where children can access resources and support at all times.
- Regular monitoring and data analysis by the senior leaders, which is fed back.
- Regular contact with and support for parents via homework and information sent home, added to the website or in face-to-face workshops.
Impact - The impact can be measured by...
- Talking to the children! They will share with you enthusiasm towards the subject, a ‘can do’ attitude with strategies to access at all levels.
- Talking to the parents! Parents are communicated to regularly about the progress of their child, with information given on how to support at home. Workshops are available and there is an open door policy where parents can contact the class teachers is they need help or guidance.
- Children learning Phonics at their own pace and to suit their needs, ensuring interventions and extra support are in place where needed.
- Good results in the Phonics Screening Test at Year 1.
Phonics Parent Meeting 2023
Level 2
The purpose of Level 2 is to:
- teach the first 19 most commonly used letters and the sounds they make.
- move children on from oral blending and segmenting to blending and segmenting with letters.
- introduce some tricky words for reading.
Level 4
The purpose of Level 4 is to:
- consolidate childrens knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words, especially trigraphs and digraphs.
- introduce words with adjacent consonants CVCC, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVC, CVCCC, CCCVCC, CCVCCC.
- learn polysyllabic words and to learn and to spell some more tricky words.
Level 6
The purpose of Level 6 is to:
- develop childrens knowledge of spelling patterns and best guess grapheme selection.
- learn more alternative graphemes for known phonemes.
- learn more alternative pronounciations for known graphemes.
- introduce the /zh/ phoneme.
- develop and understanding of the spelling rules for adding suffixes and prefixes.
- introduce homophones/near homophones and contractions.
- learn to spell more common exception words.
- develop their understanding of grammar rules.
- learn effective writing techniques including editing and proof reading and learn more strategies to read and write independently.
Level 3
The purpose of Level 3 is to:
- introduce another 25 graphemes, including consonant diagraphs, vowel diagraphs and trigraphs so that children can represent 42 phonemes with a grapheme.
- continue to practice CVC blending and segmentation.
- apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two syllable words and captions.
Level 5
The purpose of Level 5 is to:
-learn alternative graphemes for known phonemes.
- learn alternative pronounciations of known graphemes.
- introduce split digraphs.
- introduce suffixes and prefixes.
- learn to read and spell more common excpetion words.
Terminology
Phoneme - smallest unit of sound in a word.
Grapheme - symbol of a phoneme. This can be one letter or a group of letters e.g. i ie igh i_e
Grapheme-Phoneme-Correspondence (GPC) - the relationship between sounds and the letter or letters that represent the sounds.
Blending - building up of words from individual phonemes (sounds) to whole words.
Segementing - breaking down words into individual phonemes (sounds).
Tricky words (common exception words) - words that are not decodeable (see helpful documents).
Diagraph - two letters that make one sound.
Trigraph - three letters that make on sound.
Mnemonic - an illustration that is designed to support childrens recognition of GPCs.
Rhino Readers
Rhino Readers are a scheme of books that follow our Phonics Curriculum. Each book is matched to the level in which your child is currently learning, children will only meet the sounds and words they’ve already been taught as well as learning Tricky Words along the way. The book is split into three parts;
Before Reading -these pages include sounds that will appear in the book, focus words and tricky words.
The Story itself
After Reading - these pages include a comprehension based activity to go alongside the book. This checks understanding of what has been read.
Reading books will be changed ONCE a week on a Monday.
Children will take home 3 books for the week:
- Phonics level book - Rhino Reader
- Reading for pleasure book (a banded coloured book)
- Library book to promote an enjoyment and love of Reading which can also challenge or be read at bed time.
Helpful Documents
