Phonics and Spelling
Phonics- Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS)
Orchard View uses the 'Essential Letters and Sounds' (ELS) Phonics Scheme in line with all of the academies in Inspiring Futures Partnership Trust. This is a DfE Validated Scheme which means that it meets the standards expected from the government.
The aim of ELS is ‘Getting all children to read well, quickly’. It teaches children to read by identifying the phonemes (the smallest unit of sound) and graphemes (the written version of the sound) within words and using these to read words.
Children begin learning Phonics at the very beginning of Foundation Stae and it is explicitly taught every day during a dedicated slot. Pupils are given the knowledge and the skills to then apply phonics independently. We use mnemonics to remember the sounds and support with letter formation e.g. swerve around the snake - S.
Throughout the day, children will use their growing phonic knowledge to support them in other areas of the curriculum and will have many opportunities to practise their reading. This includes reading 1:1 with a member of staff, with a partner during paired reading and as a class.
Pupils continue daily phonics lessons in Year 1 and further through the school, as necessary, to ensure all pupils become confident, fluent readers.
We follow the ELS progression and sequence. This allows our pupils to practise their existing phonic knowledge whilst building their understanding of the ‘code’ of our language GPCs (Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence). As a result, our pupils can tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover.
We begin by teaching the single letter sounds before moving to diagraphs like ‘sh’ (two letters spelling one sound), trigraphs like ‘igh’ (three letters spelling one sound) and quadgraphs like ‘eigh’ (four letters spelling one sound).
We teach children to:
- Decode (read) by identifying each sound within a word and blending them together to read fluently
- Encode (write) by segmenting each sound to write words accurately.
The structure of ELS lessons enables pupils to know what is coming next, what they need to do, and how to achieve success. This makes it easier for them to learn the GPCs we are teaching (the alphabetic code) and how to apply these when reading.
ELS is designed on the principle that children should ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’. Since interventions are delivered within the lesson by the teacher, any child who is struggling with the new knowledge can be immediately targeted with appropriate support. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used where needed. These interventions are short, specific and effective.
Phonics and Home Readers
The children receive one decodable book that includes sounds they have been taught , along with complementary books that an adult or sibling can read to the child, in order to practise inference and comprehension skills. These are changed weekly and parents are required to write and sign in the reading record to indicate that the child has read at home.
The video below provides a general overview of phonics:
//www.youtube.com/embed/42jb6PopZCI#t=0.5
Phonics Guidance for Parents
Information about Phonics and ELS, including how to read words:
ELS Guidance Videos- pronouncing the phonics sounds correctly:
The videos and resources below are from the authors of Essential Letters and Sounds. They show you how to pronounce the individual sounds that your child will learn during their time in Foundation Stage and KS1 and continue to use through KS2.
Make sure you don’t add ‘uh’ onto the end, so for ‘m’ say ‘mm’ not ‘muh’ and for ‘l’ say ‘ull’ not ‘luh’. The videos below show you how to pronounce the sounds in each phase.
Phase 2
Phase 2 sounds- guide for parents
Phase 3
Phase 3 sounds- guide for parents
Phase 5
Phase 5 sounds- guide for parents
Additional Resources
Harder to Read and Spell Words
Making Sounds into WordsUsing Phonics for Spelling
ELS uses a particular method to support children in using the phonics to spell- this is shown below.
Spelling in Year 2
ELS Essential Spelling aids the important transition from phonics to spelling and is used in Year 2 once the majority of pupils have reached the appropriate level in Phonics. The strategies are familiar to the children after 2 years of learning ELS Phonics.
