🔤 Phonics at High Halden Primary School

At High Halden, we provide a systematic, structured phonics programme using Floppy’s Phonics Sounds and Letters to support all children in developing strong foundations for reading, writing and spelling.

From the moment they join us in EYFS and Key Stage 1, children are taught how to identify and blend sounds, link these to written letters and words, and eventually become fluent, confident readers.

🐶 What Is Floppy’s Phonics?

Floppy’s Phonics is a fun, engaging and fully resourced phonics scheme featuring well-known characters like Floppy the Dog, Biff, Chip and Kipper. It uses stories, colourful visuals and clear routines to help children:

• 🧠 Learn grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs)

• 📖 Blend and segment sounds to read and spell words

• 📚 Read and remember tricky words (e.g. the, said, was)

• ✍️ Begin handwriting practice linked to their phonics learning

• 🔁 Continuously review and revisit prior learning to reinforce understanding

🧩 The Alphabetic Code

The Alphabetic Code is central to how we teach phonics. It shows the relationship between the distinct sounds we hear in spoken words (phonemes) and the letters or letter groups (graphemes) used to represent those sounds in writing.

• 🗣️ Phonemes are shown in slash marks to highlight that they are sounds, not letters – e.g. the sound /k/

• ✏️ The same sound can be represented by different spellings, e.g. /k/ = c, k, ck, ch

We use the Floppy’s Phonics Alphabetic Code Chart as a visual classroom tool to help children and adults make sense of these relationships, supporting both reading and spelling.

📚 The Floppy’s Phonics Teaching Sequence

Floppy’s Phonics is organised into clear progressive levels, each building on the one before to ensure children make steady progress.

🔊 Level 1: Developing Listening & Speaking Skills

• Focuses on tuning into sounds in the environment

• Supports early sound discrimination and oral blending

• Introduces the idea that sounds link to letters

🔡 Level 1+: First Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences

• Children begin to learn simple, individual letter-sound matches (e.g. s, a, t, p)

🔡 Level 2: More GPCs and Consonant Digraphs

• Builds on Level 1+

• Introduces consonant digraphs (e.g. sh, th, ch, ng)

🔤 Level 3: Vowel Digraphs and Trigraphs

• Teaches vowel combinations such as ai, ee, igh, oa

• Introduces more complex sound patterns and trigraphs (e.g. ear, air, ure)

🔁 Level 4: Revision and Alternatives

• Children revise previously taught sounds

• Begin to explore alternative spellings and pronunciations (e.g. ay for /ai/, ie for /igh/)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Working with Parents

We value our partnership with parents and carers. You can support your child at home by understanding how phonics works and practising with them regularly.

📺 Helpful Video Guides (Oxford Owl):
▶️ How to Pronounce Pure Sounds
▶️ How to Blend Sounds to Read Words

🚀 Why Our Approach Works

✔️ Clear, consistent progression
✔️ Engaging, multisensory lessons
✔️ Ongoing assessment and support
✔️ Explicit links between reading, spelling, and handwriting

Through Floppy’s Phonics, every child is given the tools and confidence to become an enthusiastic and skilled reader — ready to tackle a world full of words.