Subject: Phonics
Subject leader: Mr. T Turnbull
To find out more about our Phonics curriculum please have a look at the documents below.
Being a confident, competent reader is a skill which underpins the learning pupils undertake throughout their entire education. Given its importance, at Greenbank we teach phonics using the Read, Write, Inc. (RWI) programme. This scheme develops pupils’ synthetic phonics, spelling, writing, reading fluency and comprehension. It systematically builds knowledge of written and spoken sounds and provides daily opportunity for pupils to read their growing number of known sounds in words and stories. We strive to ensure that pupils leave KS1 as confident readers.
Each day, pupils in EYFS and KS1 are taught phonics in groups which are tailored to their exact level, ensuring that they make the speediest progress possible. They begin in EYFS learning Set 1 sounds, before progressing to Set 2 and Set 3 during KS1. After they practise reading a new sound, pupils read the sound in words, spell words including the sound and then spend time reading a story with sounds they already know.
Phonics is built upon across the day in KS1, where pupils are encouraged to use their developing reading skills to decode new vocabulary that they encounter. For pupils whose progress is slower, daily 1:1 tutoring takes place in the afternoon across KS1 to ensure that these pupils ‘keep up’ with, rather than needing to ‘catch up’ to, their peers.
For more information about how RWI is taught, how you can support your child’s progress, and what makes it a winning formula for early reading, please click the link below and look through the other tabs on this webpage.
Read, Write, Inc. provides many different resources to support you reading with your child at home. Below are links to both the Read, Write, Inc. website (Ruth Miskin) as well as Oxford Owl (the site where many Read, Write, Inc. resources are published). There are also key documents which you can download to help your understanding of how phonics is taught.
- Read, Write, Inc. Introduction to Phonics
- Read, Write, Inc. Parent/ Carer Information
- Oxford Owl Phonics Information for Parents/ Carers
In the summer term of Year 1, pupils are assessed to check their ability to read words including the sounds they have learnt. This is a statutory assessment called the ‘Phonics Screening Check’ (PSC). The assessment contains 40 words. Half of the words are real words, and half are nonsense ‘alien’ words which are designed to check that children can read the sounds they know in new words that they have not seen before. During the assessment, each child in turn sits with a familiar adult and reads the 40 words one at a time. We prepare pupils for this assessment throughout Year 1, providing extra afternoon phonics sessions and ensuring gaps in their knowledge of the sounds are filled throughout each day.
The Phonics Screening Check 2026 will take place from 8th June – 12th June. If your child is in Year 1, or is retaking the PSC this year in Year 2, there are links below to a set of videos for your child to watch at home to support them in practising for the PSC.
Phonics Screening Check Set 2 Sounds Home Practice
Phonics Screening Check Set 3 Sounds Home Practice
For more specific support for your child, please also see the resources on the ‘How can I help my child?’ page.
Reading as regularly as possible at home is crucial to helping your child to make progress in their reading. Like any skill, reading requires frequent practice to develop. Please make sure you read at home with your child and help them to become confident at reading the book they have. Your child may bring home the same book more than once. Rereading the same text more than once helps them to become fluent and confident at reading a text, and this skill helps them with new texts that they read too.
The Read, Write, Inc. scheme includes an online ‘Virtual Classroom’ where pupils can watch phonics videos linked to the sounds they have been learning at school. QR codes are often sent home which, when scanned using a camera, open the videos on a device. Using these at home to help your child to remember more sounds and practise reading more words is another excellent way to support their reading progress. Below are links to virtual classroom videos for each phonics group. The groups are in order of progress, so bare in mind that your child can also watch videos from the groups which have come before theirs.
If you are unsure which phonics group your child is in, please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Reading at home top tips:
Guidance booklets for parents/ carers:
Below are the links to Virtual Classroom videos for each phonics group. Click to watch the videos anytime, anywhere!
Group A Group B Group C Ditty Red Green
Purple- Set 2 Purple- Set 3 Pink- Set 2 Pink-Set 3
For pupils who start Key Stage 2 with gaps in their sound knowledge, or who are struggling to read words, we teach phonics and another scheme (which is part of Read, Write, Inc.) called Fresh Start.
Phonics groups in KS2 are linked to pupils’ needs to make sure that they get the right support. Fresh Start follows the same principles as the phonics programme that pupils will know from KS1 and is aimed at developing language, spelling and writing as well as teaching any sound gaps. Pupils in these groups also receive one-to-one phonics tutoring in afternoons.
Please click the link below for more information about how Fresh Start helps reading across KS2.
If your child is taught phonics in KS2, please click here for videos to support their sound knowledge and word reading.
If your child is on the Fresh Start programme, please click here for videos to support at home.