Phonics and Reading

Phonics is taught daily in the EYFS class and there are lots of opportunities throughout the day for children to practise and apply the skills taught.

Nursery children are learning to hear and identify sounds and hear and match initial sounds to objects with games such as Silly Soup when they have to select the ingredients to match the sound of the day. Musical games are used for all to learn how many syllables are in words and names.

The reception children are becoming increasing confident at blending sounds to read words and to recognise some common tricky words which can't be blended to read, such as "the". We have been sound machines with "sound buttons" on our heads that have been pressed by others and sound buttons on our tummies that we can press ourselves as we make a wide range of words with just a few sounds. They are learning to read short fiction and non-fiction books in small groups, following the text carefully as they read together.