Phonics at Lisle Marsden Academy

 

At Lisle Marsden Academy, we are committed to ensuring our children have access to inclusive whole-class phonics teaching and timely interventions with consistency from EYFS to Year 2.

Our coverage is determined by the DfE validated Monster Phonics scheme. Our implementation of the scheme is still in its infancy, but already we are seeing clear enjoyment and dedication to it from children, staff and parents alike. All members of staff from EYFS to Year 6 (plus SLT and SEND team) have been trained to understand and deliver the scheme to ensure a consistent approach in its use and impact across the academy.

 

Please see below the key information about the scheme, taken from the Monster Phonics Teaching Manual.

 

To read the Teaching Manual in its entirety, please visit: https://monsterphonics.com/teaching-manual/

 

What is the Monster Phonics Approach?

Monster Phonics is a highly-engaging, structured, synthetic phonics programme. It facilitates learning by using monsters to group graphemes for recall and to provide an easy and fun memory cue for children. It also uses colour-coding to highlight the grapheme when a new one is taught. Once learnt and secure, the colour is removed.

 

Monster Phonics matches the EYFS framework and KS1 Spelling Curriculum. It progresses from simple to more complex phonic knowledge and skills, and ensures that prior knowledge is built upon. The main principles of systematic synthetic phonics teaching are followed, allowing children to become confident and successful readers, spellers and writers from a very early stage in their school life.

 

Each monster has a back story, and these are used in all areas of the phonics programme, story and song hooks, teaching PowerPoints, worksheets and activity resources, online downloadable apps, and the inclusive reading scheme and eBooks.

 

The ten colours and corresponding monsters derived from Monster Phonics identifying the areas of phonics that present the biggest obstacles to learning, and each of these areas are outlined below:

 

The Alternative Graphemes for Long Vowel Phonemes

The long A phoneme is made by the red character called Angry Red A. The graphemes that make the long A phoneme are coloured red.

 

The long E phoneme is made by the green character called Green Froggy. The graphemes that make the long E phoneme are coloured green.

 

The long I phoneme is made by the yellow I character called Yellow I. The graphemes that make the long I sound are coloured yellow.

 

The long O phoneme is made by the pink character called Miss Oh No. The graphemes that make the long O sound are coloured pink.

 

The long U phoneme is made by the purple character called U-Hoo. The graphemes that make the long U sound are coloured purple.

 

The long oo phoneme is made by the blue character called Cool Blue. The graphemes that make the long oo sound are coloured blue.

 

The long ow phoneme is made by the brown character called Brown Owl. The graphemes that make the long ow sound are coloured brown.

 

Silent letters are represented by the Silent Ghosts which make no sound. They are coloured white.

 

The tricky letters are graphemes that have a different phoneme from what has been taught previously. They do not show regular grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC). They are represented by Tricky Witch.

At the heart of Monster Phonics are the multisensory activities focused on the specific Learning Objective. These enable all types of learners to have more access to the teaching and learning, enhancing the amount of success that takes place within the area of phonics.

 

How is Monster Phonics Taught?

Monster Phonics is designed as a whole-class Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme for children in Reception and Key Stage 1. Daily 20 to 30-minute discrete phonics sessions are delivered by trained teaching staff.

 

Monster Phonics uses a five-part lesson structure in KS1 which ensures children become familiar with the format of the sessions, allowing the entirety of lesson time to be focused on teaching and learning and not transitioning between activities. In Reception, the plenary review and assess of Learning Objectives takes place throughout each stage of the lesson, rather at the end.

 

What Does the Planning Look Like?

The weekly lesson plan clearly shows the five-part structure. Every lesson plan is editable to enable teachers to adapt them to meet their cohort’s needs.

 

How Do We Teach HFW and CEW?

When teaching Common Exception Words (CEW) that have changed their GPC, Monster Phonics uses a character called Tricky Witch. Tricky Witch casts a spell on the irregular grapheme and changes the sound. Children are taught in lessons how to spell Tricky Words and to remember the Tricky Witch element to the words which make them difficult to spell.

 

To help the children recognise these words, Tricky Witch turns the graphemes that have changed to a gold colour. This helps the children to understand that these graphemes are irregular and have changed from their usual GPC to something different. The gold colouring highlights to the children that they need to think about how to read the word. As with the rest of the Monster Phonics colour coding, once learnt, the colour is removed.

 

Children are introduced to these words gradually throughout the whole programme. Monster phonics provides a range of resources to support High Frequency words (HFW) and the CEW such as flashcards, PowerPoints, eBooks, reading scheme and posters.

How is Phonics Applied Outside of the Phonics Lesson?

Although we are following the Monster Phonics Scheme for a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics, we believe it is crucial that our children have the opportunity throughout the day to apply the new learning.

 

EYFS

In EYFS, phonic learning is practised throughout the day in the areas of provision. Children who are not yet ready to read a book practise their reading through flashcards, word and picture matching, sound identification in the environment etc.

 

In the Autumn term, books are introduced to the children in the form of whole class shared texts and 1:1 reading with an adult (where individuals are ready for this). This progresses to include paired reading at the start of the Spring term and then guided group reading towards the end of the Spring term and throughout the Summer term.

 

Guided reading

Guided reading sessions take place a minimum of 3 times per week. Using the Monster Phonics reading scheme enables children to apply their phonics learning to carefully matched phonetically decodable books.

 

The progression of the Monster Phonics books is matched to that of the teaching programme. This means that the books introduce new GPCs in the same order as the teaching programme, and that the progression within the books is cumulative so children can practise the phonics that they have already learned earlier in their lessons.

 

Each HFW (decodable and CEW) is also taught in the programme before the children read it in a book. Each book focuses on a key grapheme.

 

Monster Phonics uses colour to help children learn the link between sound and spelling. This significantly improves progress, supporting memory and confidence.

 

1:1 Reading

Daily 1:1 reading with an adult takes place for the bottom 20% of each cohort. This enables them to not only apply their phonics learning, but also to build their reading fluency. Reading is the foundation to all learning, it is the key to success academically and ultimately in the future. Creating fluent and confident readers with a love of books is our goal at Lisle Marsden Academy.

 

Home Reading Books

The children access the Monster Phonics book they have read in guided reading in the form of an eBook from home. This enables them to further develop their fluency and provides a clear guide for parents to support decoding and comprehension.

 

In addition to the decodable phonics book, children are given an additional non-decodable book to share at home. This can either be read to or with them.

 

What Does Intervention Look Like?

Even though we have a whole-class approach to the delivery of the Monster Phonics scheme, there are children who have gaps in their understanding and require ‘Catch up’ intervention. As well as this, there are also children who show misconceptions during the lessons and require ‘Keep up’ intervention.

 

In EYFS, all children access the whole-class teaching session. Individual gaps are then addressed through ‘Catch up’ intervention and differentiated activities in both the ‘Activity’ element of the lesson and in the Areas of Provision.

 

In both Years 1 and 2 we have a qualified teacher running ‘Catch up’ intervention for the bottom 20% of each cohort. The children are grouped according to the gaps in their phonetic understanding. The groups take place 3-4 times per week and follow the Monster Phonics scheme at the appropriate point at which the gaps have been identified. The children accessing these interventions are also accessing the whole-class learning, providing them with ‘Catch up’ intervention whilst also keeping them up to speed with the current learning taking place in their classroom.

 

From EYFS to Year 2, teaching assistants run daily ‘Keep up’ interventions to target the children who found the new learning in the phonics lesson challenging that day. These sessions are 10-15 minutes long and are a part of the Monster Phonics scheme, following the same structure, images and colour-coding as the whole-class lesson to provide continuity and consistency for the children. During the intervention session the children will:

 

  • Revisit the focus grapheme through a PowerPoint or video
  • Say the sound
  • Write the grapheme
  • Blend to read words
  • Segment to write words using phoneme frames and images to support

 

For further information regarding the Monster Phonics approach, please visit: https://monsterphonics.com/