At East Harptree Primary, we aim for all our children to become fluent, confident readers who are passionate about reading. Children who read regularly or are read to regularly have the opportunity to open the doors to many different worlds! Reading will give your child the tools to become independent life-long learners. We can achieve this together through:

• Unlocking Letters and Sounds, a programme to help your child read
• Encouraging children to develop a love of books by reading to them daily; at home and at school
• Giving children access to a wide range of books at school and at home

We use from September 2025, the phonics programme 'Unlocking letters and sounds' (ULS) in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 to give your child the best possible start with their literacy. We also use it for interventions for children further on in the school in KS2. We have put together a guide to how the ULS programme works together with some useful links. If you have questions about ULS, please contact the school office, who can refer you to Mrs Haskins (Our Hedgehog class Teacher and EYFS Lead) or Mrs Banks (Phonics lead teacher) to discuss. Please take the time to read this invaluable information as it will help you to support your child with their reading.

What is Unlocking Letters and Sounds?

 From September 2025, We use Unlocking Letters and Sounds which was validated by the DfE in December 2021.

We begin teaching phonics in the first few weeks of term 1 in Reception and children make rapid progress in their reading journey. Children begin to learn the main sounds heard in the English Language and how they can be represented, as well as learning ‘Common Exception’ words for Phases 2, 3 and 4. They use these sounds to read and write simple words, captions and sentences.

Children leave Reception being able to apply the phonemes taught within Phase 2, 3 and 4. The link to Phase 2 'Actions, images and Letter formation' can be found here.

In Year 1 through Phase 5a, b and c, they learn any alternative spellings and pronunciations for the graphemes and additional Common Exception Words. By the end of Year 1 children will have mastered using phonics to decode and blend when reading and segment when spelling.

In Year 1 all children are screened using the national Phonics Screening Check. In Year 2, phonics continues to be revisited to ensure mastery of the phonetic code and any child who does not meet age related expectations will continue to receive support to close identified gaps.

For further details please see the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression here.

To ensure no child is left behind at any point in the progression, children are regularly assessed and supported to keep up through bespoke 1-1 interventions. These include GPC recognition and blending and segmenting interventions. The lowest attaining 20% of pupils are closely monitored to ensure these interventions have an impact.

Reading Scheme at East Harptree Primary school

We promote a 'phonics first' approach and in both our guided reading sessions at school and in the books children take home, texts are very closely matched to a child's current phonics knowledge so that every child can experience real success in their reading.

In these crucial early stages of reading we primarily use books from Ransom Reading Stars Phonics  to ensure complete fidelity to the Unlocking Letters and Sounds progression we follow.

Once children progress beyond decodable texts, they move onto our book scheme so that they can continue to progress in their decoding, fluency and comprehension skills to become avid, expert readers. 

 

The children are taught the sounds from 'Unlocking letters and sounds in Phases!

 Phase 2, 3 and 4 are taught in Reception

Phase 4 mastery, phase 5 and phase 5 mastery are taught across year 1 and 2.

They look like the following: 

Phase 2 Sound mat:

 

Phase 3 sound mat: 

 

Phase 5 sound mats:

 

How you can help your child at home:

Blending 

Help your child learn to read words by sound-blending,  e.g. c-a-t = cat, sh-o-p = shop. Children learn to read words by blending the letter-sounds that are in the phases. Help your child to say the pure sounds ('m' not 'muh', 's' not 'suh' etc.) as quickly as they can, and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word.

Spelling with your Phoneme Fingers

Children are taught to use their fingers to help them write words. The children say the word out loud and break it down into its individual sounds. If a word has 3 sounds children hold up 3 fingers, 4 sounds 4 fingers etc. Children use each finger as they say the sounds needed in the word then they write the letters that represent each sound. 

When using Phoneme Fingers each finger represents one sound. 

Reading

Daily reading with your child of their Unlocking Letters and Sounds book will support them to develop the skills discussed above. It will aid them to gain confidence in their fluency and pace as readers and become more confident with their sounds ensuring they can use them in all areas of their learning.