Phonics ideas for group of SEN Y7

[CoconutMochi]

I have a group of Y7 pupils with a low reading age (lower KS2). Does anyone have any ideas for phonics activities that aren’t “babyish”?

Teach your monster to read free online . May seem babyish but my y8s love it!

I'd gauge their ability first by doing a quick tick sound check, identify gaps.

For my yr6 kids who still lack phonics I do a quick session in reg time where we pick three sounds that relate. We write them on whiteboard and do a quick "point when i say the sound". Then generate words containing the sound, then construct a silly sentence- usually 5-7 words- that I write. We then say it several times, then i flip the page and they write it and self check. Takes about ten minutes.

They like doing the daft sentences and doing it on whiteboards takes away fear of error. You can build up their memory over half a term and make the sentences bigger.

@phlebasconsidered it’s for an interview! They have a reading age of 7.

Good luck. I have some y10 students with reading ages of 7. It's hard

Why more phonics? After 7 years, it clearly hasn't worked/clicked.

You could do 4 in a row game sheets working on particular sounds, to play with a partner, bingo, think of list of words starting with or containing the sound.

I’d echo @Takeachance18 here - and what was said to me by an expert in training a few years ago.

Any chance you can find out what their primaries used? Even if it’s a process of elimination?

Having said that, I would imagine Primary teachers are the “learning to read” experts, so, there’s probably more going on than “didn’t get phonics”... Dyslexia? Developmental Language Disability?

Oh… missed it was for an interview. Whoops! Hope you have managed to plan something by now…

I like the old ALS (additional literacy support) stuff from the National strategies and have used it really effectively with SEN KS3 pupils. It's quite tricky to find online though here and here
The second link is simpler and has some nice, short activities. I've used The Dream Team really effectively to categorise etc

I’m a teacher and specialist literacy/dyslexia teacher and yes to PP - more of the same is pointless but if it’s for an interview…

I would look at ideas for Structured Literacy’. Basically it’s specialist teaching strategy for pupils who are dyslexic, have a literacy/language delay or have just not been able to access phonics for whatever reason.
You could use some of the free Nessy videos on YouTube and build a lesson around that using a clear structure of recap/review, new learning point, reading and spelling of new words with dictated sentences, fully decodable reading passage and consolidation through a game. You could ask what they have been learning previous to this lessons so you can review it at the start - this shows an awareness of QfT strategies and how a model literacy lesson should work.
They might want all singing dancing but the key to literacy intervention is structured, cumulative and repetitive so you could highlight that in your lesson plan.
Hope that helps.