At Butler's Hill we use:

'Ultimate Phonics' in Nursery (F1) 

Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) in Reception (F2) and Key Stage 1.

More information and help for parents/carers can be found in the resources below.

Phonics at Butler's Hill

Through our rigorous phonics curriculum, we ensure pupils develop the skills and knowledge they need to develop as confident readers who have a love of books. 

Throughout Early Years, activities concentrate on developing pupils’ speaking and listening skills, phonological awareness and the key skills of oral blending, segmenting and manipulation. In Nursery (F1) We use the scheme 'Ultimate phonics' to cover phase 1 aspects and this phase paves the way for pupils to make a good start when introduced to our Essential Letters and Sounds Phonics programme (ELS) in Reception (F2) and into Key Stage One. 

A Whole School Approach:

ELS was created to ensure every child can read well, quickly.
The principles of ELS are based upon:

• Delivery of whole-class, high-quality first teaching with well-structured daily lesson plans

• Use of consistent terminology by teachers, children and parents

• Use of consistent resources that support effective teaching

• Repetition and reinforcement of learning

• Regular and manageable assessment to ensure that all children ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’

ELS whole-class, daily phonics teaching begins from the first days of Reception. Through the rigorous ELS teaching programme, children will build an immediate understanding of the relationship between the sounds they can hear and say (phonemes) and the written sounds (graphemes).
 

• Adults follow the teaching sequence outlined in the ELS handbook and deliver four-part sessions to allow children to revisit previously taught sounds, learn new phonemes, and then practice and apply knowledge.

• Ongoing professional development for staff via coaching and training from the Phonics Lead

• All phonics sessions build of children’s prior learning and ensure all children are involved throughout the session.

• New learning is quickly embedded because children are motivated and engaged throughout.

• All adults ensure children are actively involved during phonics lessons.

• All staff use ‘robot arms’ and ‘blending hands’ to model the segmenting and blending of a word.

• There is equal weighting of opportunities to read and write during phonics sessions.

• Staff ensure that phonics teaching is embedded and is therefore applied beyond the sessions through guided and independent reading, home reading and through phonics displays and continuous provision.

• All areas where phonics is taught have the following: ELS Wall frieze, ELS Poster, ELS phoneme mats

• All classrooms have a high quality reading area that is accessible to all children.

• Children have access to a variety of high quality texts in all areas of the school. (Class reading areas, school library area, schools entrance hall, a variety of texts are available in provision areas)

• All adults articulate phonemes using pure sounds.

• All adults deliver sessions, which will meet the monitoring criteria for high quality phonics sessions. Staff will deliver phonics lessons using our ‘Non-Negotiables’, which were decided collaboratively with all staff members

• Adults model expectations and give quality oral feedback regarding application of prior learning, presentation and letter formation

Early reading
As pupils start their reading journey they will have materials that are closely matched to their phonics knowledge. Reading books mirror or supplement the phonics texts used in phonics lessons; these books are matched to the ELS phonics programme and will ensure that our children are presented with reading material to match their phonic knowledge and improve their fluency and reading confidence.  In this way, pupils will be encouraged to use their phonics skills and knowledge as their primary reading strategy. As pupils find that they can decode words quickly and independently, they will read more and more so that the number of words they can read automatically builds up.

Ensuring All Children ‘Keep up’ Rather

than ‘Catch up’
A whole-class approach ensures that all children benefit from the full curriculum.  Children who encounter difficulties are supported by the teacher throughout the lesson, and where further support is required, ELS has three interventions to ensure that any learning gaps are quickly filled.

Supporting children with EAL
Research shows us that people who are learning a second language require extensive repetition to help them embed their knowledge and transfer it into their long-term memory. To ensure that all children can access every part of the lesson, there is repetition of activities and routines throughout every lesson.