Phonics challenge: Can you work out

what this word says?

ghoti

ghoti = fish

gh = f as in rouGHo = i as in wOmenti = sh as in naTIon

Phonics at a glance

knowledge of the alphabetic code

skills of blending and segmenting+

Phonics = code breaking

Identifying the spoken sounds in words.

Recognising the common ways that these sounds (phonemes) are written.

Blending sounds together to read words.

Segmenting words into their sounds for writing.

Phase 1 - tuning in to sounds

Environmental sounds

Body percussion

Rhythm and rhyme

Alliteration (spotting the first sound of a word)

Oral blending

Video (Oral blending)

Oral blending

A key pre-reading skill.

Here is an example of how to help with oral blending at home.

How can you support Phase 1 at home

Nursery rhymes

Storytelling

Listening walks

Make sounds in the mirror together

Clapping and skipping rhymes

Eye-spy with initial sounds (NOT LETTER NAMES)

Skipping and clapping games

Robot talk

Key vocabulary

Phoneme = a unit of sound in a word

Grapheme = a written letter representing a sound

Phase 2We teach the children to match the sounds (phonemes) they hear in words with the letters that represent them (graphemes).

We teach them how to blend those sounds together to make words. ( s-a-t = sat)

We teach them to segment (break down) words down into phonemes so that they can write them. (sat = sat)

What is a cuh-a-tuh????

The importance of the correct enunciation

It is important to keep hard sounds short, sharp and clipped to avoid confusion. eg, d, g, p, t

Some sounds need to be “unvoiced” eg. m, n, f

Now your turn .... have a go.

These are the first sounds that we teach children. How many words can you make

s a t p i n

in

at

it

sat

pin

pit

pan

s a t p i nsin

tin

tap

nip

tan

tip

pat

pan

sin

nap

nit

Blending for reading

In order to read words children first need to match each grapheme (written letter) with it’s corresponding phoneme (sound) and then blend them together to hear a word.

Video (Blending for reading)

Segmenting for writing

In order to write words children need to be able to isolate the individual sounds within them.

Video clip

Tricky Words

Not all words are phonetically decodable. Therefore we need to teach children to recognise some words by sight. eg. to, the was

Tricky word hot potato

Phase 3

In phase 3 we begin to teach children more complex phonemes.

Digraphs eg. ch, th, sh

Some long vowel phonemes eg. oa as in boat, igh as in night, ai as in rain.

Digraphs & long vowels

It is vital that children understand that phonemes can be more that one grapheme (written letter).

Countdown with ‘ai’ sound

Phase 4

Phase 4 reviews the long vowels taught in phase 3.

Phase 4 concentrates on initial and final blends in words. eg, ‘fl’ in ‘float’ and ‘nd’ in band

Phase 5

Once children are secure with blending and segmenting phase 3 sounds we introduce the children to alternative vowel phonemes. eg. hat becomes hate.

The expectation is that by the end of year 1, most children will have completed Phase 5, ready for the Year 1 phonic assessment.

Nonsense words - Buried Treasure game.