At Christ Church Junior School we recognise that some children at Key Stage 2 may be experiencing difficulty in reading and/or writing because they have missed or misunderstood a crucial phase of systematic phonics teaching.

In their day-to-day learning some children may:

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• experience difficulties with blending for reading and segmenting for spelling

• show confusion with certain graphemes and related phonemes

• have difficulty segmenting longer words containing adjacent consonants

• demonstrate a general insecurity with long vowel phonemes. For example, children generally know the most common representation of a phoneme, for example /ai/ as in train, but require more explanation and practice about the alternative spellings for any particular phoneme.

In order to support children to overcome these barriers a phonics intervention is put in place. For EAL children, who have little or no English language, this would mean following the systematic phonics programme from the beginning, having daily phonics and a reading book which reflects their progress though the phonics scheme.

Children who come to our school having failed the Key Stage 1 phonics check, will be placed in a phonics group which will address their specific gaps. These children are assessed and tracked half termly.

At Christ Church Junior School we use the ‘No Nonsense Phonics (Skills) programme. This is a comprehensive step by step method for teaching reading, handwriting and spelling. It provides systematic and rigorous phonics teaching which builds from decoding words to text level work which exposes children to varied and rich vocabulary. In order to ensure that children who have gaps in their phonic knowledge are reading to support the teaching of phonics, two weekly texts are provided. The children in this group have a reading book which is in line with their Salford reading age and comprehension level.

No Nonsense Phonics is a versatile scheme which works well for our key stage 2 children for the following reasons:

• The materials are suitable for us as an intervention.

• The materials are suitable for EAL children.

• The images and content of the work books are age appropriate.

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