In Year 1 and 2, our phonics learning is based the Letters and Sounds programme and supplemented by the 'Storytime Phonics' scheme, a systemic, synthetic reading and writing programme developed by Michelle Larbey.  We teach phonics and reading in this way so that we can inspire our children to be life-long lovers of literature. We want to instil a sense of awe and wonder around books, through engaging and exciting experiences which connect reading with enjoyment. 

The books in Storytime Phonics are written by an outstanding range of authors and illustrators, and include a wide range of well-known classics and as well as newer texts.

With a sprinkle of fairy dust and a wave of the Phonic Fairy’s wand, Storytime Phonics lessons come to life. Children are the taken through multi-sensory lessons, where they are motivated to read for pleasure, whilst still being taught word recognition and decoding skills. 

In Year 2 children will have already learnt the most frequently occurring grapheme-phoneme-correspondences. They will be able to read many words automatically by sight and will have embedded the skills necessary to be able to decode and sound out unfamiliar words. At this stage, children should also be able to spell words phonetically, though not always correctly. In Phase 6 of the Letters and Sounds phonics programme the aim is for children to become more fluent readers and accurate spellers.