Letters and Sounds:

principles and practice of high-quality phonics

Phase 1 training

Aims

• Clarify the content and expectations of phase 1

• Underline the importance of promoting good speaking and listening skills and phonological awareness

• Develop practitioners’ subject knowledge• Introduce phase 1 Aspects and Strands as

detailed in Letters and Sounds and consider suitable activities

• Identify next steps for development in settings

Session outline1. The Early Years Foundation Stage

(EYFS), Communication, Language and Literacy Development (CLLD) and Letters and Sounds

2. Phase 1 learning environment3. Encouraging good listening skills4. Planning activities5. Speech sound discrimination and oral

blending and segmenting6. Next steps

EYFS, CLLD and Letters and Sounds

• The EYFS sets the standards for learning, development and care

• Good EYFS practice is fundamental to effective CLLD in the early years

• Good CLLD practice supports and enriches effective EYFS provision

• Letters and Sounds supports the importance of developing speaking and listening skills in a broad and rich language curriculum

EYFS and CLLD

• Children's learning and competence in communicating, speaking and listening, being read to and beginning to read and write must be supported and extended

• They must be provided with opportunity and encouragement to use their skills in a range of situations and for a range of purposes and be supported in developing the confidence and disposition to do so

EYFS Practice Guidance page 39

What does CLLD mean for children?

• Building relationships, learning to interact with others so they become skilful, confident communicators

• Being able to differentiate and respond to different sounds and different people

• Developing their individuality; learning to use their voice and feeling safe to express themselves

• Developing their language skills through a multi-sensory approach

CLLD links to the EYFS principles

• A Unique Child• Positive Relationships• Enabling Environments• Learning and Development

The background to Letters and Sounds: independent review of the teaching of early readingRecommendations:• More attention needs to be given to speaking

and listening from the outset• High-quality, systematic phonic work should be

taught discretely and daily and in line with the definition of high-quality phonic work as set out in the Rose report

• Phonics should be set within a broad and rich language curriculum that takes full account of developing the four interdependent strands of language

• For most children phonics teaching should start by the age of five, subject to the professional judgement of teachers and practitioners

Recommendations

• Headteachers and managers of settings should give phonic work appropriate priority and reflect this in their decision making

• Settings and schools should ensure that at least one member of staff is fully able to lead on literacy, especially phonic work

• Monitoring arrangements should assure the quality and consistency of early phonic work

• Focus clearly on developing language comprehension through:– talking with children– reading to children

• Focus clearly on developing sound recognition skills through:– tuning children into sounds– listening and remembering sounds– talking about sounds– introducing oral blending and

segmenting of sounds in words

The review and implications for practitioners

Letters and Sounds:the new phonics resource

• Developed by independent experts in partnership with the PNS

• Meets criteria for high-quality phonic work• Notes of Guidance• Six-phase teaching programme• DVD• CLLD website

Phase 1

• Crucial phase in developing speaking and listening skills and phonological awareness

• Paves the way for a systematic phonics programme to begin

• Continues well beyond the introduction of phase 2

• Needs to be shared with parents and carers• Vital for all children including those with

special educational needs and those learning English as an additional language

CLLD, phase 1 and the communicative environment

Discuss: • What are the important elements of

an effective communicative environment in a setting?

CLLD, phase 1 and the communicative environment

Practitioners who are knowledgeable about children’s communication and language development will provide an effective learning environment which includes:– authentic and meaningful language

experiences– a range of literacy tools and props/resources – environmental print– learning centres– books

CLLD, phase 1 and the communicative environment continued…An effective communicative environmentwill develop:• rich and varied language experiences• language skills outdoors and indoors• activities that extend and support

language with and without adults

Daily opportunities

• Daily planned speaking and listening activities

• Adult-led activities• Child-initiated activities• Exploring and applying within the

learning environment• Developing speaking and listening

skills through daily routines

Developing an effective phase 1 communicative environment

• Think about your current learning environment

• Look at the CLLD audit / Early CLLD audit

• Discuss with a partner

Effective phase 1: developing the language for communication aspect of CLLD

• How children learn to listen and speak is essential to them becoming effective and skilful communicators

• To become skilful communicators children need to be provided with opportunity and encouragement to use their skills in a range of situations and for a range of purposes with people whom they know and trust

• Developing speaking and listening skills builds the foundations for literacy

Encouraging good listening skills

• Think about the things that annoy you when you are talking to somebody

• Think what happens when you are listening carefully to what someone else is saying

Phase 1 Speaking and listening Working with children

• Model good listening skills• Help children to tune into sounds• Adopt listening cues• Encourage children to listen carefully to

and discriminate between speech sounds• Give children time to respond• Encourage them to make sounds

themselves• Observe their successes and difficulties –

look, listen and note• Provide plenty of opportunities for children

learning English to become familiar with the ways in which sounds are made in English

Planning activities

• Planned daily speaking and listening activities

• Based on children’s own abilities and interests

• Building on children’s prior experiences and achievements

• Activities drawn from Letters and Sounds phase 1

Letters and Sounds – phase 1Seven aspects

• Environmental sounds• Instrumental sounds• Body percussion• Rhythm and rhyme• Alliteration• Voice sounds• Oral blending and segmenting

Letters and Sounds – phase 1Three strands

• Tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination)

• Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing)

• Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension)

Planning adult-led activities

Group task

• Choose one of these five aspectsEnvironmental sounds

Instrumental soundsBody percussionRhythm and rhyme

Alliteration• Think of an adult-led activity for

each strand in your chosen aspect

Planning for different aspects

• Consider the children’s phases of CLLD development from those in the baby room to those in the 3 to 4 year old room

• What would you need to think about when planning to cover the 7 aspects?

Observation and assessment

• Look, Listen and Note• Early Years Foundation Stage

Letters and Sounds – phase 1aspect 6: voice sounds

• Phoneme• Blending / Oral blending• Segmenting• Articulation

Oral blending and segmenting

Phonics – concepts, knowledge and skills• Phonics consists of four main concepts,

knowledge of letters and the two skills of blending and segmentation

Concept 1

Sounds/phonemes are represented by letters/graphemes

English is an alphabetic language. All the sounds (phonemes) in each word are represented by letters (graphemes)

Young children need to know this – words are not arbitrary sets of squiggles.

Concept 2

• A phoneme can be represented by one or more letters:

t

kn igh

Concept 3

• The same phoneme can be represented (spelt) more than one way

catkennelchoir

Concept 4• The same grapheme (spelling)

may represent more than one phoneme

mean deaf

crown flown

field tried

Blending …

• Merging phonemes together to pronounce a word

In order to read an unfamiliar word, a child must attribute a phoneme to each letter or letter combination in the word and then merge together to pronounce the word

… and segmentation

• Hearing individual phonemes within a word, e.g. ‘crash’ has 4 phonemes c-r-a-sh

In order to spell, a child must segment a word into its component phonemes and choose a letter or letter combination (e.g. – sh) to represent the phonemes

Knowledge of letters

• There are approximately 44 sounds/phonemes in the English language

• Children will learn to blend phonemes orally in phase1

• In phase 2 children learn to pronounce the sounds themselves in response to letters before blending them

fin bridge

catch daughter

Sound buttons

Letters and Sounds – phase 1 aspect 7: oral blending and segmenting• Oral segmenting and blending• Start with last word in sentence or phrase• No expectation that children are

introduced to letter/sound correspondences during phase 1

• Importance of clear enunciation• Blending and segmenting – reversible

processes

Review of current practiceConsider phase 1 in terms of your current practice and the current learning environment: • Are the aspects and strands covered through

current activities? • Are these activities systematically planned?• Do you regularly observe and assess the

children in these activities?• Do you follow up these activities with

opportunities for children to explore and apply their knowledge and skills in the learning environment?

• Do you involve parents in children’s learning?

Key messages for phase 1 practice

Work with a partner • List the most important messages

from today’s training to share with your colleagues

• Consider one aspect of your practice that you will change

Possible next steps

• Share Letters and Sounds with setting colleagues• Complete the CLLD /Early CLLD audit with

colleagues• Discuss activities you provide at the

moment and think how they support the seven aspects of learning at phase 1

• Plan how you will ensure that children have opportunities for both adult-directed and child-initiated learning

• Write an action plan for your setting identifying key changes to current practice

Further considerations

• How is CLLD viewed by the practitioners in your setting?

• Is there a specific policy for CLLD teaching and learning? What are the methods used for teaching CLLD?

• How well versed are the committee members or governors? Do you have a specific CLLD link?

• How are parents involved with your CLLD programme?

• How are you monitoring the impact of your programme?