Phonics

Phonics at St Giles

We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we ensure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. Learning to read is the most important lesson your child will learn at St Giles’ School.

Reading takes many forms throughout our different curriculum pathways. When student’s show a readiness for formal literacy lessons we use a phonics scheme, Read Write Inc throughout the school. It is our reading toolkit and we will adapt it and make it appropriate for your child.

We start by teaching phonics; this means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps students learn to spell well. We teach your children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are. The students also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’, before they meet them in books.

Your children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence. The teachers read to the children, too, so the children get to know all sorts of stories, poetry and information books. They learn many more words this way and it also helps develop their knowledge of the world and their writing. Reading and writing can look very different across the school and we celebrate every achievement. Some of our students may write with alternative pencils rather than using a pencil or pen. Our lessons may look very different but at the heart is a method that is successful teaching early reading.