At Lawn Primary School, we recognise the importance of phonological decoding and segmenting as one of a number of strategies to develop early reading and writing skills. When combined with reading dialogue, the promotion of reading for pleasure, and the importance of correct spelling, children can apply these skills to tackle unfamiliar texts and to express themselves accurately in written form, thus becoming more independent readers and writers. They will then have access to the ability to explore global issues in real-life contexts whilst developing their core skills.

Our intent is to engage our children to become confident and accurate readers and writers by incorporating the knowledge, skills and understanding from the National Curriculum (2014) and as outlined in our Progression Map for Phonics and Spellings, which details the strategies and methods adopted by Lawn to ensure that our programme is tailored to the needs of our children at the different stages of their schooling. At the core of this Progression Map is the use of Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) in EYFS and KS1, using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is then built upon in KS2 with the introduction of spelling rules.  Because phonic knowledge should continue to underpin spelling after KS1, we ensure that our spelling teaching and learning draws pupils’ attention to grapheme (letters or groups of letters) and phoneme (sounds that those letters make) correspondences (GPCs) that our children gain knowledge and skills about in EYFS and KS1 as well as placing importance on pupils’ need to understand the role of morphology and etymology.   Every member of teaching staff, therefore, undertakes the full programme of training, which is provided online by Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.