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Phonics

Twinkl Phonics

At Pennine Way we use a scheme for our phonics coverage from Nursery through to Year 2. The Twinkl scheme ensures progression across all of these year groups and allows opportunities for interventions across the whole school to support children in their phonics and reading ability. Twinkl Phonics is a DfE validated full systematic, synthetic phonics programme that contains everything we need to deliver phonics teaching to children from the very beginning of learning to read and write to full fluency. Children have a 30 minute whole-class session every day in class. Additional to this, some children receive interventions to support their development. Morning activities from 8:30 and afternoon activities in Activity Time are also linked to their phonics learning.

Common Exception Words 

These are also covered through daily learning in phonics session within EYFS and KS1. There are a set to learn to read and a set to learn to write. These will often be sent home with weekly spellings to learn at home. Tricky words do not follow the common phonetic spelling rules. They can often appear frequently in texts and help readers to understand what they are reading. In the Rhino Readers books that children bring home, these are generally coloured in red.

Rhino Readers

We have invested over £3,500 on brand new books this year to match our new phonics scheme. These books are progressive and match the phonemes taught in each level. Each of these books contain a ‘before reading’ section where you can rehearse sounds, decode words and identify tricky words. After reading the book, there is a section at the back with tasks, activities and questions for you to work through with your child to deepen their understanding.

We are supplementing the Rhino Readers books as we wait for more to be published so on occasion, your child’s book may not be of the same structure.

Please help your child to take care of their books. Children should be bringing a bad to school each day to ensure books don’t get lost or damaged. We understand that these things happen but if this incident becomes frequent or is an act of careless behaviour/intent then we will be sending home a warning letter. Following this, if another book is damaged or lost, you will be sent a letter charging you £5 to replace the book.