Over St. John's CE Primary SchoolPhonics
Phonics
At Over St. John's, we follow the DfE-approved, Monster Phonics Scheme. Monster Phonics is an enhanced systematic synthetic phonics scheme for children in Reception and Key Stage 1. At Over St. John's we use Monster Phonics in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. It is also used within school as a rapid intervention for children who require further support.
It teaches phonics in a comprehensive structured progression but provides additional multi-sensory support to make learning more memorable and engaging. It uses colour coding and monster sound cues to support learning when children encounter long vowels, silent letters, and tricky letters. This additional support is used consistently and then cleverly phased out, creating confident independent readers. And, it’s not just about the colours; the monsters themselves each represent a sound which brings phonics to life. This creates engagement, and speeds up the learning process for everyone.
Meet the monsters and characters from Monster Phonics.
At Over St John's, Phonics is taught whole class on a daily basis and each lesson follows the same five-point structure of review, teach, hook, activity and plenary.
Teachers carry out ongoing formative and summative assessment of the children within their class and provide rapid intervention sessions, pre-teach sessions or precision teach sessions for children who may need it. We assess our children using the Monster Phonics online assessment tracker.