What is Phonics?

Phonics is one method of teaching children how to read and write.

Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words.

Some are represented by one letter, like ‘t’, and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck and ‘air’ in chair.

Children are taught the sounds first, then how to match them to letters, and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.

Synthetic phonics refers to ‘synthesising’, or blending, the sounds to read words. It is based on the idea that children should sound out unknown words and not rely on their context.

Phonics at Standhill Infants School

At Standhill Infants School, we use the DfE's approved phonics teaching programme Bug Club Phonics.

Bug Club Phonics is a systematic synthetic phonics scheme which provides children with the opportunity to develop their phonological awareness, ability to segment and blend words and read tricky words by sight in order to become fluent readers. 

Active Learn Bug Club

The children can consolidate and build on their learning by accessing a range of texts on their Active Learn accounts.   Click on the link below to take you to the Active Learn website.