Phonics 

Phonics at Downfield Primary School

The journey children make towards becoming proficient and successful readers and spellers, starts with their phonic learning journey. This is arguably the most important journey a learner will ever make.

At Downfield, we believe in an organised programme of teaching and learning with a two pronged approach to teaching systematic, synthetic phonics. We are very proud of the strong links between our approach to teaching phonics and the high quality, matched reading materials provided for pupils to support their reading development in school and at home.

Our approach, materials and pedagogy is rooted in extensive training, research and CPD. Contributing organisations / individuals are as follows: Letters and Sounds, Collins Big Cat and Debbie Hepplewhite.

Provision, planning and assessment of the phonics curriculum has been written by staff at Downfield and brings together the sequence of the Letters and Sounds framework with principles and materials our bespoke, home grown programme: Downfield SSP. 

Our approach to teaching phonics is based on a belief in supporting children in developing the three core skills of blending to read, segmenting to spell and handwriting. Through our consistent and organised approach, children are taught to recognise the basic and complex alphabetic code of which our language is made up and to apply this in spoken and written language.

A full description of our approach to teaching phonics can be found in the phonics policy below. 

Alphabetic Code Charts