ELS - Essential Letters and Sounds

Phonics - Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) Parent Hub

Welcome to the parent hub for Phonics at Pembrokeshire learning centre, we use Essential Letters and Sounds, a phonics SSP backed by Oxford University Press.  Here you will find information regarding the teaching of phonics, resources to support your child at home with phonics and reading, as well as training videos which may help you and your child.

Also attached is further information on how to use the new Oxford Owl eBook library.

This information is for children in Primary Puffins, Bluestone KS3 and Haven LRC using ELS to support their learning - your teacher will let you know if this applies to your child. 

Reading books at Pembrokeshire Learning Centre

• Oxford Owl e-Books will be issued which you can access from any mobile device. These are specifically aligned to the teaching sequence of sounds your child is learning.
• You will be provided with a log in card to access these. These should be read 4 times during the week.
• In addition, your child will be issued with a shared reader which must be read together and will be changed regularly.

How to support your child with reading at home

We want children to create a strong orthographic map. This means that they learn sounds spelt by the letters or groups of letters in each word. This is especially important when ‘alternatives’ in the English language appear.

To read fluently, or well, we need a strong orthographic map.

To consistently recognise that the ea in bread spells /e/ we need to read it at least 4 times. This means we need to read the word many times to build fluency for reading. This is why we advocate for not changing a book until it has been read 4 times.

Links and Documents

Support for parents

How to pronounce sounds:

Phase 2 sounds

Phase 3 sounds

Phase 5 sounds