New research - making phonics fun

• Do you have students that are not making progress with word level reading skills and decoding?
• Have you used precision teaching but found it hard to find time for planning, administering and recording?

A recent study conducted by Kent Educational Psychology Service and University College London has shown that using Sound Progress in school improves decoding and single word reading significantly.

Sound Progress is a user friendly online programme that will help people deliver the intervention well. It can be used on tablets, laptops and computers to support children who need extra help with their early literacy skills.

• Promoting the application of phonics in reading through automaticity
• Achieving a consistent approach to support across the school
• High quality knowledge about individual children's learning - regular practise of blending and segmenting
• Making it fun.

Precision Teaching is one of the most effective teaching strategies for ensuring high levels of fluency and accuracy and tailors teaching for children who are finding learning difficult. It provides high quality information about the rate of progress an individual is making and helps build fluency and automaticity. It involves short one minute tasks to build skills through regular practice. Through monitoring and carefully tracking the progress of an individual child, changes can be made within the programme to ensure that the individual child is learning as fast as they can.

Feedback from schools who have trialled Sound Progress highlighted how much the children enjoyed using the programme:

"The children have enjoyed the challenge and feeling a sense of achievement. They were always happy to participate and were encouraged by the timer. They have shown improved self correction, segmenting and blending when reading."

Visit the Sound Progress website

To order the programme please complete the booking form (DOCX, 936.8 KB), alternatively if you have any queries please contact educationalpsychology@kent.gov.uk.

There are regular Webinars being held to walk you through the system. To take part in one of these webinars please email soundprogress.admin@kent.gov.uk.

Further advice and support is available from KEPS, if you would like to follow it up with additional training or talk about the results that you get with children, please contact us by calling 03000 41 02 50 or emailing educationalpsychology@kent.gov.uk.

Contact Details

The Education People
Telephone: 03456 041699
Email: hello@theeducationpeople.org