The chairman of the Okehampton Round Table presented Hatherleigh Primary School with a cheque for over £700 which will go towards the school’s new phonics reading scheme.

Chairman Chris Brown-Martin presented English lead Linda King with the cheque for £750 which has enabled the school to purchase new books for the Reception class (ages four and five) and Key Stage One (ages five to seven)...

Mr Brown-Martin said: ‘The whole team from the Okehampton Round Table would like to wish Hatherleigh Primary School all the best with their new phonics reading scheme and well done for keeping up with the great work.’

Mrs King said: ‘We are implementing a new phonics and early reading scheme and as a school we have spent over £4,000 already. We are really pleased with the impact the scheme is having already but we need more help with the costs. We are really grateful.’

Phonics is a method of teaching children how to read and write by matching sounds with individual letters or groups of letters.

There are many different forms of phonics but one of the most widely used methods is synthetic phonics which teaches children to pronounce letters in isolation before blending them together to create a word.