Phonics

Rationale

At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, we recognise the importance of phonological decoding as one of a number of strategies to develop early reading skills. When combined with reading dialogue and the promotion of reading for pleasure, children can apply these skills to tackle unfamiliar texts and to express themselves in written form, thus becoming more independent readers and writers.

Aims

To provide pupils with a clear understanding of how the alphabet works for reading and spelling;

To enable our pupils to become fluent and confident readers with a strong phonological awareness;

To develop pupils’ sight vocabulary to aid fluent reading;

To provide opportunities for repetition and consolidation so that spelling and reading become automatic.