The Educator Magazine U.K. Jan-April 2024 issue - Magazine - Page 58
Explore a new phonics
scheme with a free trial
of LearnPhonics!
Phonics schemes are great – they
provide clarity to what was once a
misunderstood and ambiguous subject,
they ensure consistency and coverage
and once your scheme is up and
running, everything goes like
clockwork.
But which scheme do you choose?
There are 45 different validated
programmes, all with different
approaches and sequences, written by
people from a variety of experience
bringing different perspectives on the
best way to teach. Committing to one
is a big deal; it can be costly and takes
time to implement. Often you get little
information or a real feel for the scheme
before you begin this commitment.
For this reason, LearnPhonics! is offering
a free trial of all the planning and
materials so you can decide if the
scheme would be a good choice for
you. You most likely have a scheme
in place but maybe it just doesn’t
approach phonics in the way you
would like, maybe the style is outdated
for your students or maybe you would
just like to freshen up your curriculum
and try something new.
Whatever the reason may be, having a
phonics scheme that really matches the
needs of your children and ‘feels right’
for you and the whole school is more
important than anything.
With this free trial you can see if the
teaching style and approach that
underpins LearnPhonics! would work
well in your setting.
Why LearnPhonics!?
LearnPhonics! uses an interactive
and engaging approach to teaching
phonics, ensuring that children are
fully participating so that they are
able to make rapid progress in their
reading and writing.
It is multisensory so appeals to all types
of learners and each lesson follows the
same routine so that teachers and
children know what is coming next.
This also reduces teacher workload as
there is no need to read and learn
different planning. The planning is
not focused on learning how to read
words one at a time in ‘lists’ but to get a
holistic understanding of reading and
writing. So there are no word flashcards
one after the other, the lessons are
dynamic and interactive.
The interactive ActivInspire Flipcharts
for every lesson means that there is no
resource prep needed before lessons!
Hurrah!
The complete scheme comes with 410
lessons spanning over 82 weeks,
beginning with simple, single sounds
and basic encoding and decoding skill
development finishing, with more
complex GPCs and grammar rules.
It follows a revised version of the
original ‘Letters and Sounds’
progression from Phases 1 – 6.
Phases 2 – 5 include mnemonics with
actions to help children remember
their grapheme-phonemecorrespondences. There are QR codes
within each daily lesson plan that you
can scan for a quick demo of how to
perform each one. There is also extra
planning and resources for teaching
letter formation in a way that you are
sure to love – check out our Instagram
page for more information about
letterformation - @learn_phonics_
Deeper Understanding:
The LearnPhonics! tagline is ‘learn,
understand, know’. Our aim is for
children to have an embedded
knowledge of all the GPCs they have
learnt. One of the ways in which
LearnPhonics! enables this is through
the Deeper
Understanding points in the planning
which gives prompts for a discussion.
Here children make connections, spot
patterns and learn interesting tricks
to help them remember the GPCs and
tricky words. This discussion during a
phonics lesson is so crucial in helping
children to remember those often really
difficult sounds.
LearnPhonics! Ensures lots of time to
recap learning between phases so that
children do not move on too quickly
before they have embedded their
knowledge. There are specific weeks in
Phase 2 where only the skills of
decoding and encoding are learnt to
make sure that crucial aspect of reading
is not lost to simply knowing GPCs!
What's included in the free trial:
• Daily planning for Phases 1-6
accompanied with interactive
ActivInspire Flipcharts (free software
download)
• Guidance manual and pre-recorded
training videos to support teachers in
their practice
• Weekly parent handouts/homework
• Common Exception Word resources
• Letter formation resources
• 6 Weekly assessment resources
• Formatted Excel spreadsheets for
recording and analysing data
• Intervention planning (Keep Ups)
• Downloadable resources such as
flashcards, displays, worksheets etc.
More and more resources such as daily
activity sheets are currently being
added to the scheme to provide even
more opportunities for children to
practice and apply their phonics
learning.
Please get in touch at...
admin@learnphonics and check out
Instagram @learn_phonics_ for more
information and content.