Phonics at Havelock

What is Phonics?

Phonics is a method for teaching pupils how to read and write an alphabetic language. It is done by

• Listening and recognising the sounds in spoken language
• Teaching the skill of blending(for reading) and segmenting(for spelling)
• Teaching children to recognise the 44 phonemes in the English language.

At Havelock Primary School, the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 use a phonics scheme called ‘Read, Write Inc’ developed by Ruth Miskin.

Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words. Some are represented by one letter, such as ‘t’, and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck and ‘air’ in chair.

How will I know how to pronounce the phonic sounds?

Click here for more parent guides on phonics:

To help you along the way, teachers will provide age-specific reading tips, activities, and eBooks to really bring your child’s learning to life. We will also provide workshops where you can find support and advice on a range of questions you may have – including helping your child with their phonics and motivating them to read.

Year 1 and 2 Phonics Screening Check

The statutory Year 1 Phonics Screening Check takes place each year in the Summer term. The check is a list of 40 words which children will read one-to-one with their class teacher.  It will assess phonics skills and knowledge learned through Reception and Year 1.

This is repeated for pupils in Year 2 who did not pass the screening in Y1.

It will check that your child can:

• Sound out and blend graphemes in order to read simple words e.g. n-igh-t
• Read phonically decodable one-syllable and two-syllable words, e.g. cat, sand, windmill.
• Read a selection of nonsense words which are referred to as ‘pseudo words’.

Here are some websites that will help you to support your child at home with phonics: