How We Teach Phonics at Marner Primary
At Marner Primary School, we follow the Tower Hamlets Education Partnership (THEP) comprehensive, systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme. This programme is fully aligned with the National Curriculum and validated by the Department for Education (DfE), ensuring effective teaching of word reading and spelling. The aim of the THEP programme is to establish phonics as the primary approach for decoding unfamiliar words, before introducing additional comprehension strategies. It provides a clearly structured pathway that supports children to meet or exceed the expected standard in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and to achieve all National Curriculum expectations for word reading through decoding by the end of Key Stage 1.

What Is Systematic Synthetic Phonics?
Systematic Synthetic Phonics is an evidence-based approach to teaching reading and writing that explicitly teaches children the relationship between sounds (phonemes) and the letters or groups of letters (graphemes) that represent them. This approach supports the development of fluent word recognition, with the ultimate goal of enabling children to read all words automatically and effortlessly. Through repeated practice in blending, segmenting and manipulating words, pupils develop secure knowledge of grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs). As this knowledge becomes embedded, children are encouraged to recognise and read words instantly within texts, rather than continuing to sound out and blend each word aloud when this is no longer necessary.

The Stages of Phonics Teaching
The phonics journey begins in Nursery with Phase 1 phonics. During this stage, children are introduced to a wide range of sounds to develop their phonological awareness, a crucial foundation for later reading and writing. In Reception, children move on to Phase 2 phonics, where they begin learning to read by
understanding the relationship between letters and sounds. Most children in Reception will progress through Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3 and Phase 4 of the phonics programme. When children move into Year 1, the majority begin Phase 5 phonics, which they continue to study until they sit the Phonics Screening Check in the Summer term of Year 1.

Early Reading
At Marner, early reading is closely aligned with our phonics programme (Tower Hamlets Education Partnership – THEP for short) )and is supported by an extensive range of decodable books. Children are given reading books that are carefully matched to the sounds they are learning in their phonics lessons.
This helps them to practise and consolidate their phonics knowledge and supports the development of confident, independent readers. In addition to their decodable reading books, children also visit the school library regularly, where they are encouraged to choose an appropriate book to read for pleasure, helping to foster a love of reading from an early age.