helping you to support your children with phonics and
TRANSCRIPT
Aims for the session:
To understand the importance of phonics.
To get an idea of how phonics is taught in school.
To understand the progression through phonic phases and how to support and develop children’s learning.
What can I do at home?
20 spoken vowel sounds – but only 5 vowels
44 phonemes – the different sounds NOT spellings
69 spellings with more than one pronunciation
80 - 84 basic spelling patterns with one or more
alternative spellings
91 basic English spelling system spelling patterns
185 - 205 spellings for 44 phonemes (50 spellings is the
European average)
2828 unpredictably spelt words that need memorising
among the 7000 most common
Why Phonics?
The aim is to secure essential phonics knowledge and skills so that
children can progress quickly to independent reading and writing.
Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to crack
the code.
Gives us the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.
Year 1 phonics Screening check.
High quality phonics work… Phonic work is time-limited (phases 2-4) whereas
work on comprehension continues throughout life (phase 6)
Interactive multi-sensory phonic session at their own level.
Opportunities for independent reading and writing.
Pace and progression is key.
Technical vocabulary A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be
represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters.
Eg. t ai igh
A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter
A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. Written representation of a sound which may consist of 1 or more letters E.g. The phoneme ‘s’ can be represented by the grapheme s (sun), se (mouse), c (city), sc or ce (science)
Alliteration is the consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession.
Pseudo/ Alien words are words invented to help test decoding skills.
Technical vocabulary A digraph is two letters, which make one
sound. ◦ A consonant digraph contains two consonants
sh th ck ll
◦ A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel
ai ee ar oy
A split digraph is a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make)
A trigraph is three letters, which make one sound. E.g. igh dge
Technical vocabulary Oral Blending – hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging
them together to make a spoken word (no text is used) for example, when a teacher calls out ‘b-u-s’, the children say bus.
Blending – recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p, and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’.
Segmenting – identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound to form the word ‘him’.
Summary of Phases Phase 1 (on-going)
◦ To distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration.
Phase 2 (6 weeks) ◦ To introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
Phase 3 (12 weeks) ◦ To teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to spell simple regular words.
Phase 4 (4-6 weeks) ◦ To read and spell words containing adjacent consonants.
Phase 5 (in Yr1) ◦ To teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes.
Phase 6 (in Yr2) ◦ To develop their skill and automaticity in reading and writing.
Phase 1 - ongoing To develop language and increase vocabulary through speaking and
listening activities.
To develop phonological awareness.
To distinguish between sounds.
To speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control.
To become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration.
Use sound talk to segment words into phonemes.
Example activities - listening walks, dodgems, Silly Soup, rhyming chants/songs,
Phase 2 – Up to 6 weeks
To introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences
Children know that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes.
They have knowledge of a small selection of common consonants and vowels – only 19!
They blend them together in reading simple CVC words and segment them to support spelling. – use of magnetic letters!
Phase 2
Letter Progression (one set a week)
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 s
Correct Articulation of phonemes is essential!
Pronunciation - not ‘uh’ on the end – use soft voice!
Video – Articulation of Sounds (Search on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJdn6sbbsk
Articulation Long oo
spoon
moon
balloon
smoothie
Soft Sound
think
thin
thick
thumb
Short oo
cook
book
look
hook
Spoken Sound
the
that
there
this
This is one reason why the English
Language is tricky!
Children won’t grasp this overnight or by osmosis…they need
to be immersed in an awareness of
language throughout the day.
Teaching Sequence Revisit and Review
Recently and previously learned phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and blending and segmenting skills.
Teach
New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting.
Practise New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting.
Apply New knowledge and skills while reading/writing.
Phase 2 – Example Activities
Sound Buttons
Box of Sounds – children sit in a circle. Place objects in the centre of the
circle. Pass a box containing grapheme cards around the circle singing. Child holding the box at the end of the song takes out the top card, identifies sound and places it next to the corresponding object. (Alternately call out a sound for the child to find)
Splat the sound
Phase 2 – more ideas!
Pebbles with letters on
Cutlery drawer organiser – sort objects by letters
Nursery Rhymes
Water with paint brushes
Writing on back/floor/wall with finger
Tricky Words
Phrases to represent the word. E.g. silly ants in dustbins – said.
Jumping up to hit the word
Stepping on the stairs
Matching pairs game
Regular practice
Phase 3 – Up to 12 weeks
To teach children one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to read and spell simple regular words.
Naming and sounding letters of the alphabet.
Recognise letter shapes and say a sound for each
Hear and say sounds in the order in which they occur, and read simple words by sounding out and blending.
Recognise common digraphs and read some high frequency words.
Phase 4 – (4-6 weeks)
To teach children to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words.
Teaching should focus on the skills of blending and segmenting words containing adjacent consonants.
They should not be taught in word families such as spot, spit, spin as the children will treat ‘sp’ as one unit.
Phase 4 Children now have the ability to blend and segment therefore they are moving beyond simple cvc words to cvcc, ccvc, ccvcc and cccvc.
b l a ck s t r o ng
c c v c c c c v c
f e l t b l a n k
c v c c c c v c c
Phase 4 – Example activities
Yes/No
Phoneme Count – prepare boxes/gift bags labelled with a
number. Sort objects/words into boxes according to how many units of sound the word has in it.
Phase 5 To teach children to recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught.
Teaching the long vowel phonemes
Read and spell phonetically decodable 2/3 syllable words e.g. bleating, frogspawn, shopkeeper.
Choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes when spelling words.
Recognise an increasing number of high frequency words automatically.
Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts
ai a-e ay
Seeing themselves as writers!
Spelling Vocabulary
Syllable wa/ter ba/na/na in/for/ma/tion
Prefix/ Suffix un- -ing -ed -s/-es/-ies -er -est
Compound word carpark cupboard snowfall
Silent letters k/h/b/t/gh/w E.g. climb , knee
Contraction and Apostrophe don’t isn’t
Root word rain (rainy/rainfall/rains/ rained/ raining)
Year 1 Phonics Screening
A screening check for year one to encourage schools to pursue a rigourous phonics programme.
Aimed at identifying the children who need extra help are given the support.
Assesses decoding skills using phonics
40 items to be read (20 real words, 20 pseudo words)
If children do not pass in Year 1 they have to retake the test at the end of Year 2.
What does it look like?
Phonics screening check
(mid-June)
- 80% of children pass
- Not all those who pass are
fluent readers.
- The highest scores are not always by the most fluent
readers.
Tracking and Progress
Children are assessed briefly at the end of each session to ensure understanding and good progression.
Children are assessed against a progress tracking grid.
Children move teaching groups to accommodate their need and ability – we stream the children by phase across the Infants.
End of phase progress checks.
Year 1 Phonics screening check.
How can I help? - Reading Books
Your child brings home reading books each
week. Talk about the book, the character,
what is happening in the story, predict what
may happen next. Encourage a love of
reading – not a chore!
I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt!
What else can I do at home? Ask your child to find items around the house that represent
particular sounds, i.e. ‘oo’ - ‘spoon’ ‘bedroom’
Play matching pairs – with key words or individual sounds/pictures.
Key words on the stairs
Play tricky word bingo
Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read them?
Notice words/letters in the environment.
Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and about.
Lots of activities online for children to practice their phonic knowledge.
Phonics games websites Teach your monster to read (App)- the link is on our school Facebook page.
Mr Phonics (youtube)
Mr Thorne Does Phonics (youtube)
Jolly phonics songs (youtube)
Websites such as:
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm
http://www.ictgames.com
http://www.familylearning.org.uk/phonics_games.html
http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/
http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/children/how-to-share-books/reading-with-your-child-booklets/