Phonics
Julie Phillippo
You will learn:
• Why children are taught to read and
write using phonics
• What phonics is all about
• How to pronounce some of the sounds
• Ideas for practising phonics at home
with your child in a fun way
Why phonics?
• Government requirement
• Gives children a way of decoding the
marks on paper we call writing
• The alternative – rely on visual
memory. (Seeing a word and
remembering its shape)
Phoneme• A unit of sound
• Phonics is about linking sounds to
written letters (graphemes)
• Spoken English is divided into about
42 phonemes.
• Phonics schemes are based on these
42 phonemes.
Teaching order
• Children are taught the phonemes in a certain order.
•s a t p i n• The first group of phonemes allows
them to make a number of CVC words. They can then start making their own words straight away.
Letters and Sounds – Reception
• Set 1: s a t p
• Set 2: i n m d
• Set 3: g o c k
• Set 4: ck e u r
• Set 5: h b f,ff l,ll ss
• Set 6: j v w x(ks)
• Set 7: y z,zz qu(kw)
• Check pronunciation of each phoneme
Segmentation and Blending
• Children are taught to segment words. That means that they break them up into their individual phonemes/ units of sound. e.g. c-a-t
• They are also taught to blend phonemes together to make words. (Sounding out a word.) This helps with reading.
Digraphs
• Some sounds are represented by two letters. These are called digraphs.
• e.g. sh, ch, ng, oo
• Some schemes also introduce children to trigraphs.
• igh, ear, ure
Digraphs and Trigraphs
ch - chip ar - farmsh - shop or – forth – thin/then ur - hurt
ure - sure ow - cowai – rain ee - feetng - sing oi - coinigh - night air - fairoo – book, spoon er - corner
Check pronunciation
Phoneme frame
• Segment the word.• Write one phoneme in each square.
•fish
•wing
f-i-sh
w-i-ng
frog f–r–o–g
brown b-r-ow-n
flag
f-l-a-g
s-t-airstair
night n-igh-t
Nursery – phase 1
• Children at nursery are taught to hear the phonemes first. They are generally not expected to write them in the early stages.
• Children spend a lot of time playing with sounds in nursery, so that by the time they get to reception, they are ready for phase 2.
Reception
• Children begin to pronounce the sounds themselves in response to seeing them written down. (phase 2)
• They are then taught the names of each letter of the alphabet. (phase 3)
• By phase 4 they are learning to blend adjacent consonants. e.g. fl, bl, sp, st
• Show video clip: Teaching phoneme/ grapheme correspondence h,g,b
Year 1 – phase 5
• Children are taught the alternative spellings for the long vowel sounds and split digraphs.
ie / y (tie sky)
Phase 6 - Year 2
• Children develop their knowledge of the English spelling system.
• e.g. prefixes, suffixes, silent letters
Tricky words
• There are a number of common words in English which do not work phonetically. Children are taught that these are ‘tricky’ words and they learn to sight read them.
• e.g. phase 2 – the, to, I, go, no
When talking to your child, use the sound the letter makes, not the name.
• ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘a’.’
• Later in reception, children are taught the names of each letter. (The alphabet.)
www.montgomery.devon.sch.uk
