Gareth’s top tips to make a difference in Summer 1 as the Phonics Screening Check gets closer.
1. Act on the data – teach to the gaps!
You’ll have the results from your assessments, so it’s key to make time to check out the sounds gaps on the sounds grid. Schools I work with use the grid to be laser-focused on closing the remaining gaps. Once you know the sound gaps you can set up tutoring, draw on the relevant Virtual Classroom films, and pinpoint the sounds for ‘pinny’ time. Upfront organisation is time well spent! A useful tip is to keep the grid up to date so you can focus efforts where needed.
2. All hands on deck!
You all know the power of one-to-one tutoring. This is the time of year to talk to your leadership team about releasing extra staff for 10-minute sessions. They can be organised throughout the day to suit your timetable. It helps to pin up the sounds grid where all staff can see it at a glance – and keep it up to date so everyone sees the impact they’re having!
3. Secure the most common graphemes first!
The most important thing at this stage is to secure the Set 3 sounds. If children can read these speedily and accurately, they will be able to read 38/40 words in the PSC. Great bang for your grapheme buck! It’s worth noting that the final few Set 3 sounds (ire, ear, ure, tion, tious/cious) are not included in the PSC.
As soon as you’re happy that your children know the most common graphemes, you can focus on the additional graphemes. Children encounter kn, wh and ph first through Storybook activities, then they need to learn e-e, ie, ue and au. These could all be included in the PSC.
4. Organise daily afternoon Speed Sounds Lessons!
The schools I work with find the extra practice helps make the sounds stick. It also helps avoid good readers making careless errors in the PSC because they don’t check the digraphs first! I recommend including all children due to take the PSC in the session, but you might need to split them into two groups based on the sounds they need to practise.
5. Extra practice of ‘Special Friends, Fred Talk’ to read any word
Don’t forget that there are lots of 3-minute Set 2 and 3 ‘Special Friends, Fred Talk’ Virtual Classroom films to give children practice reading unfamiliar words, ideally every day. These films contain all new Green words and nonsense words and children love them!