At Front Lawn we believe that the ability to read is the most important skill we can teach our pupils. In order to get our students reading and enjoying the world of books as quickly as possible we have chosen to use Sounds Write, a Department for Education approved Phonics program. 

Phonics involves matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. For example, the sound k can be spelled as c, k, ck or ch.

Teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together helps them read unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out. For example, when a child is taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can start to build up the words: “tap”, “taps”, “pat”, “pats” and “sat”.

Phonics and reading are part of the fabric of Front Lawn, with Phonics taught every day from 9-9.30am. This protected time ensures every child has access to this vital part of their education. 

We run parent workshops in the Autumn term each year to introduce Reception parents to Phonics and discuss how you can support your child at home. An excellent Sounds Write parent workshop can be found here that gives you more information on Sounds Write specifically, and will help you support your child to become a fluent reader. 

If you need support with the pronunciation of sounds, these can be found here. 

For more information on parents workshops please speak to Miss Donaldson (Year R). If you would like some support with Phonics and reading at hope please speak with your child’s class teacher.

Writing

Front Lawn Primary Academy is a storytelling school. We use Talk for Writing to teach our children.

We believe that ‘Imitation is the first step towards mastery—writers find their literary voice through replicating the voice and style of other writers. The easiest way to learn anything is to do it the way a master does’ (Andy Griffiths, Mark Burns)

Talk for Writing enables children to imitate the key language they need for a particular topic orally before they try reading and analysing it. It also gives them the opportunity to internalise the language features learnt and then apply them to their independent writing.   We teach all of our English through fun yet focused activities that help them rehearse the tune of the language they need, followed by shared writing to show them how to craft their writing.  Modelling of shared writing will always be to a high standard and children will have the chance to discuss the tools that have been used to create an effect on the reader.  This then enables them to choose the writer tools they want to use in their independent writing, which in turn helps them to develop their own literacy voice. 

All of our writing is taught with a clear audience and purpose in mind.   Children have the opportunity to write fiction and nonfiction.   During their nonfiction unit they will write across the curriculum applying their knowledge of other subjects in their writing.