In September 2021, in line with government guidance, Gothic Mede moved to using the validated systematic synthetic phonics scheme "Essential Letters and Sounds". 

Essential Letters and Sounds is designed to teach children how to read through the act of decoding and blending. It teaches children the link between the sounds of our language (phonemes) and the written representation of these sounds (graphemes), or the spellings of the sounds contained within the English language.

Essential Letters and Sounds teaches children how to read, quickly! It does this through consistent lesson structure, resources and language. The teaching practices of the scheme minimise cognitive load and increase children’s success.

Children not only learn to decode quickly but are also introduced to high quality vocabulary through teaching activities and decodable books. Harder to Read and Spell (HRS) words are practised daily (see attachments below).

Fidelity of sound production is very important for children learning to read. Please click on these links to hear the correct pronunciation for phase 2 and phase 3 sounds.