Bug Club Phonics
Bug Club Phonics is one of the DfE’s approved phonics teaching programmes and aims to help all children at Mereside Primary Academy to learn to read by the age of seven in a fun and accessible way. Following its own proven progression, the whole school programme matches the National Curriculum and Early Learning Goals. At Mereside Primary Academy we begin the programme in Nursery and will continue teaching Bug Club Phonics to children beyond the age of 7 if they still need support in their reading.
Here at Mereside Primary Academy we use Bug Club Phonics to give your child the best possible start with their reading and literacy. This page will give you an insight into the world of Bug Club Phonics along with some useful links for you at home.
Teaching Phonics with Bug Club
Firstly your child will learn a small group of sounds associated with written letters.
For example ‘a’ makes an ahh sound and ‘t’ makes a ttt sound.
Once they have been taught a group of sounds they will be taught to blend these sounds together to read a word. For example s~a~t. All children are assessed regularly by our reading lead teacher so children's continue to make progress.
Nursery
When appropriate our Nursery staff will begin to introduce the first initial sounds in a short 5 minutes lesson. The Nursery children will also be exposed to oral blending where the adult will sound out words s-a-t to see if the children can put the sounds together and say the word.
Reception
In Reception children will begin to learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. They will then be taught how to put sounds together to read words.
There are 26 letters in the alphabet but there are 44 sounds in the English language.
Some sounds are made using pairs of letters which are called digraphs and some are made using 3 letters which are called trigraphs.
Here is a link below to hear the sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Year One / Year Two
Children will begin to work on more complex vowel sounds and read books appropriate to their reading level.
Our daily sessions of Bug Club phonics last for 30 minutes each day.
To help reading at home:
Your child will start to bring books home in reception that relate to the sounds that the children have learnt. Please help them to read and give lots of praise!
If you need any support in helping your child with their reading, please speak to your child’s teacher or to Mrs Walsh, our Community Reading Champion.
Useful websites for Parents
Please find a list of websites that you may find useful in helping you and your child learn about phonics. Games and fun activity websites are also included.
http://jollylearning.co.uk/ - Games and information for parents
http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ - many games to play
BBC Bitesize - many games to play covering all areas of the curriculum