Phonics
Welcome to the St John’s Church School phonics page. There are lots of resources and ideas to help support your child through this very important stage of learning.
At St John’s Church School, we use the Rocket Phonics programme to teach our children to read.
Rocket Phonics is a systematic synthetic phonics programme that has been written by phonics experts. It includes a combination of digital and printed resources, and two fully matched series of decodable reading books. The reading books we use have been carefully designed to appeal to the tastes and interests of children who are starting out on their reading journey. They include a variety of fiction and non-fiction and have been carefully devised to provide practice and application of phonics knowledge and skills in full alignment with the classroom lessons.
At St John’s Church School, we are passionate about delivering high-quality, interactive phonics lesson where the focus is on ‘Keep Up’ not ‘Catch Up’. We know that all our children can be successful readers and we hope to instill this from an early age.
Key concepts of our phonics programme:
- Phonics is taught for a minimum of 30 minutes daily in Year Reception, One and Two.
- All staff are supported with regular phonics professional development training.
- A clear pathway is followed through the alphabetic code. Teaching sounds in a systematic and clear order.
- Children are not asked to read texts by themselves that they can’t yet read.
- The Teaching & Learning Cycle (revisit and review, teach, practise, apply) is followed.
- Phonics is taught at letter-sound, word, sentence and text levels.
- Teachers focus on details, such as accurate modelling and pencil hold.
Please watch the Introducing Reading Rocket Phonics Guide to learn more.
Phonics Screener information for Parents
In Year 1, during the month of June, all children are required to sit the statutory Government Phonics Screener check. Children will be shown a mixture of real words and alien words, containing a mixture of previously taught sounds. Your child will be asked to read the word, which they can either sound-out and blend or just read. You will be notified of your child’s score.
Information for parents.
The YouTube video below helps parents understand how to pronounce sounds correctly.
Recent Parental Feedback on the phonics evening
"Extremely useful evening explaining the terminology in advance of the children bringing these terms home."
“It was so nice to spend time with the teachers too and feel part of the school community.”
"It was a really helpful evening to help me, as a parent, understand how the sounds are explained at school. I feel confident knowing how I can reinforce, assist and build on this at home."
“Gave an insight into what he has been doing over the past few years. The evening helped me understand how to best support him from home.”
"It was very helpful! I have a better understanding of how to help my child and now know what to expect."
“The Phonics evening was brilliant! Really great to see what my son is learning and how he learns. Plus, we can use the knowledge to pass on to him at home.”
Fieldhead, Off Leymoor Road, GOLCAR, Huddersfield, HD7 4QQ
01484 644444
office@stjohnsji.co.uk