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Teaching and learning
Phonics
Phonics is part of the teaching and learning of English. You can find out more about how we teach English at St Stephen’s here.
At St Stephen’s, we value reading as a vital life skill. it is a skill that supports children’s learning across the whole curriculum. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
We believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers thanks to a systematic and synthetic phonics program. At St Stephen’s, we use ‘Read Write Inc’. This phonics program ensures that children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through EYFS and Keys Stage 1.
Read, Write, Inc at St Stephen’s
In Reception, we hold a parents information evening about phonics to help parents and carers to understand the curriculum and how it is taught. The presentation used is full of information and can be accessed below:
Reception Phonics Information Evening
You will also find some useful links below to the RWI Set 1-3 sounds and pictures, the Early Learning Goals for the Early Years and information about the 2025 Phonics Screening Check for Key Stage One pupils:
Information for parents & carers – Phonics Screening Check
Phonics Games and Activities to do at Home
Phonics videos and games to listen to and play at home
Alphablocks is a children’s television series on CBeebies which uses animated blocks representing each letter.
A guide to the Alphablocks series
Animated phonics songs for both revising and teaching letter-sounds. The letters are not shown on screen, and it is designed so that children tune into the sounds before they see the letter. Perfect for introducing letter-sounds for the first time.
Teach Your Monster to Read is free to play on desktop and laptop computers. Children have the opportunity to design a monster and then go on a learning journey covering letters and sounds to reading full sentences.
Children can use this game to practise identifying the letters that make sounds.
Balloon Phonics is a phonics reading game which focuses on three letter words (consonant-vowel-consonant or CVC). There are three different games to choose from: Initial sounds, Middle and End sounds.
Use this game to practise reading words which contain the sound you choose. The green words have the sound buttons on them which will help your child to segment and blend.
A frantic reading game! The player has to see how many words they can read in 90 seconds. Helps develop fluency and speed when segmenting and blending. Best when played with an adult to check words are read accurately.
Children change a sound at a time to make the words the Viking says.
The Year One Phonics Screening check contains alien or nonsense words which contain sounds the children have learnt. Children are exposed to these alien words from Reception. Use this game to practise segmenting and blending real and alien words.
The games and videos above are a small selection for the wide variety available online. Please use the websites below to explore other games to play.
