Faith in Phonics is an innovative and ground-breaking addition to the faith-based literary genre.
Author Jackie Day and phonics consultant Dr Marlynne Grant (who sits on the Reading Reform Foundation and has working with the government and Department for Education) have created the first resource of its kind to enable early readers to access Bible stories for themselves using the systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) system.
Sharing both the 42+ sounds(phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that represent the sounds, children in reception year are now able to enjoy the Christian-centric teachings and experience the delight of reading independently, possibly for the first time. The second Faith in Phonics boxset is aimed at year one pupils and above.
Written to complement a school’s existing reading scheme, the series also provides an opportunity (with adult support) for children to reflect on each story and apply the story and Christian values to their own lives.
A valuable addition in an education setting (as well as the family bookshelf), both authors and illustrator, Emma Repetti, need to be congratulated on the production of this significant and accessible literary work.
Synopsis:
The Faith in Phonics series aims to complement a school’s existing reading scheme with decodable texts, providing both a phonic and Christian faith focus. The books will enable young children to read Bible stories for themselves. With adult support, the reflections and questions provided at the end of each story will help children to apply the stories, and their Christian virtues, to their everyday lives, thus reinforcing the school ethos.
Religious education makes a significant contribution to the overall knowledge pupils need in life. Faith in Phonics seeks to assist schools achieve the three pillars of the curriculum: substantive knowledge, ways of knowing, and personal knowledge.
The phonics used and developed through the Faith in Phonics books meets the expectations for England of the government policy paper, The reading framework(2021),the Ofsted Inspection Framework(2021),the National Curriculum(2014)and the Phonics Screening Check.
Dr Marlynne Grant says:
“Research shows systematic synthetic phonics to be the most effective way of teaching reading. Children are taught the 42+ sounds (phonemes) of the English language and the letters (graphemes) that represent them (letter-sounds or grapheme-phoneme correspondences).
“To decode words, children are taught to blend (synthesise) the sounds together to read the words. Some common words (such as the, you, come) are not easily sounded out. They are called ‘tricky words. Tricky words are best taught by identifying the ‘tricky’ part, learning it, sounding out and blending as usual. A book that includes only words containing the letter- sounds a child has learnt so far, plus a few tricky words, is called a decodable text.”
Faith in Phonics is published by Redemptorist Publications and is available to purchaseon the publisher’s website at
https://www.rpbooks.co.uk/
A discount is also available for multiple purchases.
About the authors:
Dr Marlynne Grant
Dr Marlynne Grant practised for many years as a Local Authority Educational Psychologist. She conducted research into systematic synthetic phonics and created the programme Sound Discovery and the ‘daughter’ programme Rapid Phonics using her extensive experience of working with children. Rapid Phonics was government approved and Sound Discovery was re-validated in 2022 as a full systematic synthetic phonics programme.
Jackie Day
Jackie Day is a retired primary school Special Educational Needs Coordinator, currently involved in supporting Dr Marlynne Grant with training for her phonics programme, Sound Discovery.
Under the English Hubs training programme, she delivered Sound Discovery phonics training to schools. Jackie has always enjoyed writing. Working with Redemptorist Publications has weaved together the various threads of Jackie’s life in a way that felt divinely inspired.
It is Jackie’s hope and prayer that schools, children, and parents will find Faith in Phonics useful and helpful in building the reading skills and faith of the next generation.
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