Fishing for Phonics (FfP) is a systematic synthetic scheme that has been developed to link talking, reading, spelling and handwriting for children in the Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2.
Children will start the scheme in the Early Years by developing their phonological awareness through 2 weeks of “Paddling with Phonics”. They will then progress on to learning phoneme-grapheme correspondences and segmenting and blending skills. Lessons link to handwriting development, and there are ideas for continuous provision for EYFS and Year 1. Phonological awareness will continue through the first half term of teaching.
The scheme links learning to read with learning to write and form letters correctly. By teaching letter formation in groups according to their formation patterns, we can build sequentially on the motor pathways. And when we do this, we continually reinforce how the letters are formed. This means that we can lay down the motor pathways for letter formation more efficiently.
The children will learn to use segmenting and blending skills to decode and encode words. Decodable books reinforce the skills they learn during the phonics lessons, enabling children to practise segmenting and blending. They will also develop their ability to read ‘fishy words’. (Common exception words). The scheme develops sight vocabulary, which will help with reading fluency. The books aim to develop vocabulary and give parents ideas about questions to ask their children whilst sharing simple books with them.
There is access to detailed daily plans for each year group. Plans are based on Rosenshine’s principles, of a daily review of previous learning, introducing new ideas in small steps, modelling teaching, allowing time for guided and independent practice and obtaining a high success rate.
The children in schools where this scheme has been implemented love their phonics lessons! They like the structured approach and fun activities. Teachers find the daily plans useful. Most importantly of all children’s reading, writing and handwriting skills develop comprehensively.