1. Phonics at Downton CE Primary School
These notes are to be read alongside the phonics and spelling leaflet.
What is it?
Phonics is a strategy used for teaching children to read and write (spell) words.
We follow the Government’s “Letters and Sounds” programme; which splits the process into 6 phases. It is intended for children during the whole of the Foundation Stage and Key Stage One.
It begins with a series of listening games, getting children to ‘tune in’ to sounds before teaching them about the sound that letters make and then moving on to letter patterns, high frequency words and sentence building.
It is a 15 minute daily lesson, little and often is the key.
What letter sounds are we learning and in what order?
We usually learn 4 per week.
s, a , t , p
i, n, m, d
g, o, c, k
ck, e, u, r
h, b, f, (ff) l (ll) (ss)
Sounding out small words – a, an, as, it, is, in, at, sat, pat, pin, cap, rug, bit, etc…
Reading high frequency words – and, on, not, I, to, get, got, the, to, no, go, him, his, Dad, Mum, up, of.
j, v, w, x
y, z, (zz) qu
sh, ch, th, ng.
Oral blending and segmenting words.
Reading sentences and captions.
High frequency words – off, can, had, back, we, me, be, he, she, big, put, but, see.
ai, ee, oo, oa
ar, or, igh, ur
ow, oi, ear, er
air, ure
High frequency words – was, will, with, my, for, too, you, this, that, they, then, them, her, now, all, look,
Blends that are made when 2 consonants are put together, e.g. st, fl, br, gr, sm, sn, sl, tr, fr, cr, etc…
High frequency words – said, so, went, from, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, children, do, when, out, what, it’s, help.
Reading and writing sentences.
This should keep us going for the foreseeable future!
Please do not rush ahead and teach your child future letter sounds and patterns. Do take any opportunity to practise the ones they already know!

2. Handwriting at Downton CE Primary School
Signing
To help the children learn the letter sounds and be able to use them in contexts such as when reading and writing I am accompanying my teaching with some signing.
I am using a strategy called ‘Cued Articulation’. Some parents may be familiar with ‘Jolly Phonics’ where each letter sound is accompanied by an action. Cued Articulation is similar in that sense. Each letter or speech sound has an action which is linked or used as a prompt to show what the mouth does to produce the sound.
It is used widely by speech therapists and is becoming increasingly common in schools. It helps the children to ‘cue’ themselves in, thinking about how to make the sound, visualise it, say it and write it.
I have used it with my previous classes and have had a lot of success with it.
Please see the separate hand out which shows how to do the actions with the sounds.
Handwriting at Downton CE Primary School
At Downton, we teach children to write using the cursive script. It is very neat and lends itself easily to joined up handwriting as the children travel further up the school.
In year R, we focus heavily on improving children’s fine motor control. This might be through less structured play activities such as building models or threading beads, to a more formal approach of developing pencil control to follow patterns and then write letters.
A a
B b
C c
D d
E e
F f
G g
H h
I i
J j
K k
L l
M m
N n
O o
P p
Q q
R r
S s
T t
U u
V v
W w
X x
Y y
Z z
You are warmly invited to accompany your child into school every morning to help with handwriting practise between 8.40 and 9.00am. From Monday 5th November 