Phonics Curriculum Statement 

What do we learn in Phonics? 
At Cuerden Church School, children begin to learn phonics as soon as they join the school. We are passionate that all children become confident, enthusiastic readers and writers and believe that phonics is the first step on this journey. Through phonic teaching children  will develop their segmenting skills for spelling and their blending ability for reading.  The teaching of high - quality consistent phonics is of priority with the intention of quickly turning children into readers.  At our school we use Letters and Sounds and Lancashire resources to teach phonics.  

This helps children to:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding

• Develop the habit of reading widely and often

• Write clearly, accurately and coherently 

What does Phonics look like at Cuerden Church School? 
Phonic sessions are taught daily in EYFS, Year One and Year Two. In each session children will have the opportunity to learn a new sound, practice those they have already secured and apply their developing skills to read and spell words. All children will have a reading book matched to their emerging phonic skills and these will be shared across home and school to allow children’s confidence to flourish. Teacher’s of phonics use assessment to ensure all children are making good progress and  receive timely support to achieve appropriately.  The structure of our phonic sessions enable staff to hear children read each day.  In-turn teacher’s read to their classes everyday, either from a list of ‘must read’ books for the year group or from recommendations and requests made by the children themselves. 

What will we know by the end of our time at Cuerden Church School? 
We believe the biggest gift and one of the most important jobs we can do is create readers who are confident, articulate and have a life-long love of books. When children leave our school we want them to know how to blend and segment so they can read with joy and fluency. We believe they will  have discovered favourite authors who they can recommend and discuss with others. That they know how writers create effects in their work and are confident to have ago at doing this themselves. That they can use their skills to discover the things they are interested in and to entertain themselves by getting lost in a story! It is our attention that children will leave us with their phonic skills embedded and the foundations of reading comprehension firmly in place.