Phonics
‘Phonics simply means sounds!’
At Thaxted Primary School everyone is committed to teaching all children to read. Teachers have an excellent knowledge and understanding of the processes involved to help children adopt a love for reading.
We use synthetic phonics to help children to read. With synthetic phonics, children start by learning individual sounds. We teach these initial sounds using actions and once they have a firm grasp of these individual sounds, we teach children to blend sounds together to read simple words, like c-a-t, b-o-x and f-r-o-g. Children also learn to read groups of letters by saying the sound they represent, like ee in f-ee-t and ai in r-ai-n. Gradually they will learn to match sounds to letters which will then support them in their writing and spelling. All of this is taught following the order of Bug Club Phonics.
Children start learning phonics in Reception with ‘Phonic Bug’. Children take their very own reading book home in their first few weeks of school. These books consolidate all our phonics work from in the classroom. Children can spot sounds and read simple decodable words. This programme also has an online reading world where children can share both fiction and non-fiction books at home, on the computer, with their family and friends. Try out our Bug Club link in the Children's section of this website!
All parents are invited to a Foundation Stage meeting once their child starts school in the Autumn term. This provides an ideal opportunity for you to see your child learning and practising sounds and actions with their class teacher. We also hand out support material for you to try at home.
We have several phonics and reading workshops for different levels of reading throughout the year.
For more information on your child's learning in Phonics, please look at the Curriculum Leaflet on your child's class page, found in our 'Children' section.