At Sutton Courtenay, we use the DfE approved Phonics International programme as our framework for teaching. We teach phonics actively from the moment children come to school.  At first, they learn about sounds all around them through songs, rhymes, and experimenting with their voices and language patterns. This prepares them for the skill of being able to break words up into sounds prior to learning to read and spell.

When children are ready to learn letter sounds, we start with actions to help them remember the sounds and link them to letter shapes. 

You can help your child by practising the actions and sounds on the sound cards they bring home.

As children become more confident, we teach them spelling alternatives for each sound.  For example, there are several ways of spelling the /ee/ sound, such as in the words read, me, theme, and mummy. This is taught progressively across Years 1-6 using the Phonics International scheme.  You can see the scheme here:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/

This method of learning different spelling alternatives continues to support reading and spelling across the school.

The alphabetic code chart below shows most of the commonly used spelling alternatives in English.