First Steps

I am a Nursery Teacher at The Forest Academy and last year I was lucky enough to trial the new Nursery (First Steps) phonics scheme. Following the FS2 baseline assessments I have been informed it is evident who did phonics with me last year. It has also been commented on that their behaviours for learning are much better too. The whole exposure without expectation has greatly impacted their learning!

We are absolutely loving the nursery phonics materials. The consideration given to including a matching appropriate traditional rhyme with the focus letter sound is not only a fantastic way to ensure a good range of rhymes are learnt across the year, but also adds a different aspect of learning phonics skills. The flashcards are extremely useful and I love the way that they correspond with the Reception set. I am looking forward to seeing the full impact next year.

We have noticed improvements in speech sounds and the way children produce sounds. The children are more confident in talking and the children can remember and enjoy playing with sounds. I would recommend the resource as it gives structure and purpose to build skills before the more formal learning of phonics teaching.

We are loving it in our Nursery. We really like the way it is accessible to all children whatever their ability. Some children are learning their speech sounds through the scheme whilst others are reading and writing the graphemes.

The children love the interactive Big Book. They love looking at the pictures and lots of talking arises from the details of the pictures. The children are engaged and parents have commented on how they are talking about it at home.

Rocket Phonics First Steps works. Across the research sample, all participants, including SLT and nursery practitioners, said that they could see an impact on children’s progress and development across a range of areas. “We’ve seen the benefit on children’s acquisition of phonics sounds and how they’re learning and retaining those, developing phoneme grapheme correspondence which means they’re readier to start a formal programme [in Reception]”.

The structure and progression mean that practitioners can identify children who are struggling with a sound and quickly put in place additional support. “…the order of the speech sounds … follows their development which helps their communication and language. I’ve seen an impact already with children who need support around the pronunciations of those sounds.”

Compared with children who were joining Reception from settings which had not used it, pupils who had followed Rocket Phonics First Steps were more secure in their learning, and familiar with the routine of a structured daily phonics session. “[Colleagues in Reception] said they could see a huge difference in those children that had done it the year before in comparison to those that come in from external nurseries that had never done it before.”

Adopting Rocket Phonics First Steps has boosted staff confidence through the provision of practical training and easy-to-use resources. The daily lesson plans provide clear step-by-step support, and the consistent structure makes it easy to embed it into their provision. “We have that confidence – we’re doing this in nursery and we know what we’re doing.”

Rocket Phonics First Steps is more than just a phonics programme: it is based on an holistic approach to developing speech and language. “We love the fact it’s a phonics programme and language programme combined… it’s your vocab, it’s your writing, your understanding, your comprehension, it’s all the [elements]. They all draw together.”