We learn to read and to get ‘brainy, brainy, brainy’ in Foundation Stage and Year 1 through teaching StoryTime Phonics, a systemic, synthetic, whole-class reading and writing programme based on Letters and Sounds.  We teach phonics and reading in this way so that we can inspire our children to be life-long lovers of literature. We want to instil a sense of awe and wonder around books, through engaging and exciting experiences which connect reading with enjoyment. 

The books in Storytime Phonics are written by an outstanding range of authors and illustrators who know how to engage children and make them excited to read for pleasure. 

 Being able to read opens up a whole new world for children. Storytime Phonics creates a magic that we need our children to experience. We want them to want to read, to find things out, to want to know what happens next, these are the behaviours that encourage children to become readers, hence the reason why we at John Ray Infants have chosen the StoryTime Phonics programme as the approach we think will be able to instil a love for reading.  

With a sprinkle of fairy dust and a wave of the Phonic Fairy’s wand Storytime Phonics lessons come to life. Children are the taken through multi-sensory lessons, where they are motivated to read for pleasure, whilst still being taught word recognition and decoding skills. 

In Year 2 children will have already learnt the most frequently occurring grapheme-phoneme-correspondences. They will be able to read many words automatically by sight and will have embedded the skills necessary to be able to decode and sound out unfamiliar words. At this stage children should also be able to spell words phonetically, though not always correctly. In Phase 6 of the Letters and Sounds phonics programme the aim is for children to become more fluent readers and accurate spellers. 

Our next steps are also to use StoryTime Phonics as an intervention programme in Year 2. The children can enjoy real books with their teacher to develop language and comprehension skills. In addition to targeted support for decoding skills