Phase 1
Children develop their listening skills through focusing on environmental sounds – e.g. they make a 'whoosh' noise for a rocket. They recognise animal sounds and different sounds that they can make with their voices, playing games such as bingo. They start to recognise musical sounds and sounds that you can make on your body. They begin to experience patterns rhythm and rhyme and an understanding of alliteration.
From the spring term onwards, they follow the ELS Phase 1 phonics scheme. Children start to experience the process of orally blending sounds to make words – e.g. C-A-T makes cat.
Essential Letters and Sounds Phonics Scheme
At Boxmoor Primary School we aim to provide children with a range of strategies in order to read and spell both familiar and new vocabulary. The teaching of phonics is an integral part of the curriculum in both the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 classrooms. We use the phonics programme Essential Letters and Sounds to enable our Reception and Year 1 children to become fast, fluent and confident readers.
We ensure that our teaching of phonics is rigorous, structured and enjoyable. Children have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they are introduced to new phonemes, can practise and revise previous learning and have plenty of opportunities to apply the knowledge they have. Children work with pace and are encouraged to apply their knowledge across the curriculum with any reading or writing activities. The children also learn a variety of other key words by sight.
The videos below will tell you a little bit about Essential Letters and Sounds and also how to help your child pronounce each of the 44 sounds they will learn: