Phonics & Early Reading
At The Carlton Infant Academy we use ‘Pearl Phonics’ to teach phonics, with a consistent approach throughout Early Years and Key Stage One and is taught in a systematic way following the Pearl Phonics validated programme. Phonics continues for all children until they no longer need it.
The Pearl Phonics programme provides a comprehensive step-by-step method for teaching reading, handwriting and spelling. Lessons are carefully designed with a consistent approach to master the complex English Alphabetic Code.
Each session is rich in content, providing phonics instruction and exercises with cumulative code (grapheme-phoneme correspondences-GPCs), words and short decodable texts. The children will develop their language comprehension and build up their knowledge of new vocabulary and spellings. Tricky words are also woven into the programme so that children can progress through the comprehensive set of Big Cat L&S Decodable reading books.
We teach Phonics to the whole class using a ‘Keep up, not catch up’ approach ensuring all pupils learn to read as quickly as possible. Teachers use the children’s assessments to ensure their teaching is appropriate for all, our worksheets ensure that the majority of pupils can work independently and are challenged, so that adults can support those who need it. Children falling behind are identified immediately and have additional tutoring during the day at their challenge level whilst considering the children not missing important learning from other curriculum areas.
We strive to create fluent, able readers who are confident and show a love of reading. To help us to achieve this, we use decodable reading books throughout EYFS and Key Stage 1. These are closely aligned to the Pearl phonics lessons that are delivered daily and are
designed to allow children to read using the sounds and phonemes that they already know. When a child reads, if they struggle decoding words and cannot read fluently, then comprehension is lost. The decodable books allow pupils to practise the sounds that they already know whilst building confidence, understanding and fluency. Through reading these, all children achieve success and this in turn builds enthusiasm and a love of reading. The books are a combination of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to allow pupils to a wide range of genres and to broaden their reading library.
Alongside the decodable and book band texts, pupils book, which they choose purely for pleasure. Until they can read it for themselves, they will explore the pages and have it read to them. This aims to develop the love of reading but also enables pupils to widen their vocabulary and understanding of different texts. Pupils can self-select from the library during visits as well as the classroom book corners, where there is a wide range of genres including fiction books, comics, and graphic novels, as well as non-fiction books, magazines and newspapers.
Phonics Pure sounds
