CatsfieldC of E Primary

SchoolPhonics for Parents

31.1.13

What is phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skillfully.

They are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes; • identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make -

such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’; and • blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.

Research shows that when phonics is taught in a structured way - starting with the easiest sounds, progressing through to the most complex - it’s the most effective way of teaching young children to read. It’s particularly helpful for children aged 5–7.

How is it taught?• The children will have a daily multisensory

phonic session, which is normally up to about 20 minutes

• This session is practical and enjoyable• The children need to practise phonic skills

‘little and often’

Enunciating sounds• Phonemes (the smallest unit of sound in a word) should be

articulated clearly and precisely

Blending and segmenting• Blending: building words from their sounds in order to read• Segmenting: breaking words down into their sounds to spell

c a t

Phase 1

• Discriminating between sounds• Developing awareness of rhythm and rhyme• Developing awareness of alliteration• Exploring voice sounds• Tuning into, listening to and talking about

sounds• Orally blending and segmenting

Phase 2 the to I no go

Phase 3he she we me be was my you her they all are

What is a phoneme?

sat shirt

moss catch

train caught

Phase 4• Blending to read words with consonant clusters• Segmenting to spell words with consonant clusters

train

frog

crab

chips

Phase 5The same grapheme can be pronounced in different ways:i fin, findo hot, coldc cat, centg got, giantow cow, bow

The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way:

burn

first

term

heard

work

Different ways to spell the same sounds

Best guesses• The best guess is:• You (usually) only get this in the

middle of the word: • You (usually) only get this at the

end of a word:• Not as common:

a_e

ai

ay

a eigh ey ei

What is the phonics screening check?• It helps your school confirm whether your child has

made the expected progress• It happens in June in Year 1 and possibly Year 2• Your child will sit with a teacher they know and be asked

to read 40 words aloud• Some of the words they may have read before and some

words will be completely new to them• The check normally takes just a few minutes to complete

and there is no time limit. If your child is struggling, the teacher can easily stop the check. The check is carefully designed not to be stressful for your child.

The check will contain a mix of real words and ‘non-words’ (or ‘nonsense words’). Your child will be told before the check that there will be non-words that they will not have seen before. Children will be familiar with this because schools already use ‘non-words’ when they teach phonics.

How to help at home• Point out letters in signs when out and about• Talk about words seen in everyday life• Children need lots of experience of hearing and reading books• Children need to build a stock of rhymes through hearing them

repeated over and over again• Sing songs• Play letter games, such as ‘I Spy’• Make words with magnetic letters on the fridge• Play ‘Pairs’, turning over two words at a time trying to find a

matching pair• Write a shopping list together

Key messages• Enunciate sounds carefully• When children don’t know how to read a word – support them to say

and blend the sounds from left to right• Try to make time to read with your child every day. Grandparents and

older brothers or sisters can help, too• When children don’t know how to spell a word – support them to

‘sound it out’ and then choose the right letters

Foster a love of reading!

Sharing a book should be a relaxed, exciting and special experience

GlossaryPhoneme: the smallest unit of sound in a wordGrapheme: the letters representing a phonemeDigraph: a two-letter grapheme where two letters

represent one sound e.g. ‘ea’ in seatTrigraph: a three-letter grapheme where three

letters represent one sound e.g. ‘igh’ in nightSplit digraph: has a letter that comes between the two letters in

the digraph, as in time and lime, where ’m’ separates the digraph ‘ie’

Websites• http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading/• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/

teachers/• http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm• http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-2-

games.html• http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/

games/literacy_menu.html• http://www.ictgames.com/letterlifter.html• http://www.mrthorne.com/category/start/• http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/sitemap_overview