About Us

Early Reading

Early reading with phonics

At St Nicholas Priory, we teach early reading through systematic synthetic phonics (SSP). We use a government-approved phonics scheme called Read, Write Inc.
 
The children learn 3 sets of sounds that increase in difficulty throughout the sets.These sounds are then blended and segmented. Phonics lessons are taught in very small ability groups and are reassessed every 3 weeks. 
 
Children’s home reading books are, at first, levelled by their phonetic reading abilities using the RWI books and as they grow in confidence they move on to Oxford Reading Tree comprehension books. 
 

Useful pronunciation guides

Set 1 sounds

Set 2 sounds

Set 3 sounds

Split diagraphs

Initial consonant blends