Phonics
Phonics at Kingsley St John’s CE Primary School
Early reading and writing at Kingsley St John’s is underpinned by the consistent practice and use of daily phonics. We follow the Twinkl Phonics programme, a fully comprehensive synthetic phonics scheme designed for children from Nursery to Year 2. The programme builds progressively on prior learning and is closely integrated with our reading curriculum to ensure that pupils develop secure early literacy skills.
Phonics is taught every day in a structured, engaging and systematic way. Each lesson follows Twinkl’s five‑part teaching sequence, ensuring full coverage of the four cornerstones of phonics—phoneme recognition, blending, segmenting and application.
Our daily phonics lessons follow this structure:
Revisit & Review — Children revisit previously taught grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and tricky/common exception words to strengthen recall.
Teach — Staff introduce the new GPC or tricky word for the session.
Practise — Children blend and segment words using the newly taught GPC, developing fluency and confidence.
Apply — Pupils read or write captions and sentences containing taught GPCs and tricky words, applying their learning in context.
Assess — Teachers assess children’s understanding against clear criteria to ensure progress and identify next steps.
Through this structured approach, children develop strong foundations in reading and writing, enabling them to become confident, fluent readers who are ready to access the wider curriculum
Phonics Screening Check
In June, all Year 1 children at Kingsley St John’s take part in the National Phonics Screening Check. This is a short, one‑to‑one activity designed to assess how confidently pupils can use their phonics knowledge to decode words. Children read a mixture of real words and pseudo‑words (sometimes called alien words), which help teachers understand whether pupils can apply their phonics skills to unfamiliar vocabulary.
The check is carried out in a calm, familiar environment and feels very similar to the daily phonics activities children complete in class. The results help us identify any gaps in phonics knowledge and ensure that children receive targeted support where needed. Families are informed of their child’s outcome before the end of the summer term. Pupils who do not meet the expected standard continue to receive additional phonics support and will take the check again in Year 2
This video explains what phonics is and how children use taught GPCs to blend and segment words.
Phonics Play has some great games from Level 2-6 "https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/resources/phase/2/dragons-den"
