Phonics &Reading

October 2018

The Technical Vocabulary• PHONEME – a sound in a word.• GRAPHEME – the letter or group of letters that

make the sound.• BLEND – put sounds together to make words.• SEGMENT – break words into separate sounds for

spelling.• CVC – consonant vowel consonant (also back).• CCVC – stop.• CVCC – fast.

How do children learn to read?

1. Read pictures and make sense of a story.

2. Hear sounds/phonemes in spoken words.

3. Carry on a rhyming string (book, look, took, etc).

4. Hear and recognise initial sounds.

5. Sound out CVC words – segment for spelling and blend to read (cat, sit, etc).

7. Recognise that a sound can be made by more than one letter (ai/ay/a-e).

8. Blend CCVC/CVCC words (stop/fast).9. To learn split digraphs a-e.10. To know that a phoneme can be made by

1, 2 or 3 letters (i, ie, igh).

How do children learn to read?

Main SkillsChildren need to learn the letter sounds, vowel

phonemes and tricky words.

THEN

• skill of blending for reading.

• skill of segmenting for spelling.

This should enable them to read anything!

How do they do this? • Consolidate blending and segmenting of CVC

words.• Learn more digraphs.• Begin to blend and segment CCVC and CVCC words.• Consolidate reception words and begin to read

year 1 and 2 words.• Learn split digraphs and same digraph to make

different sounds (ow – flower/ ow in show).• Learn that a sound can be made from more than

one grapheme (oa/ow).• Learn plurals and verb endings.

• Consolidate spelling of verb endings (ed/ing).

• Learn suffixes and prefixes (spiteful, unusual).

• Learn spellings of words with silent letters (know).

• Syllables (beats in a word).• Use of apostrophe to shorten words

(don’t).• Learn compound words (airport)• Terms plural and singular.

How - In school?

• A taught focused guided reading session each week.

• A daily phonic lesson

• Literacy lessons and activities daily.

How – At home?• 2 books will be sent home each week with

your child’s reading diary. Please DO write in your child’s diary.

• Phonics homework will be sent home in Foundation Stage. – A sounds sheet for the week and practical play activities!

• Spellings will come usually after Easter.

How to help at home continued….

Comprehension / ‘Unpicking’ the textFiction texts•Think about the characters feelings •Ask a question about the story and find proof for the answer in the text•Create alternative endings•Discuss features such as the settings, language used, capital letters / words in bold•Predict what will happen from the cover / blurb•Discuss reasons why liked / disliked the story/ what would have made it better?

Poetry•Can you find examples of alliteration/similes/metaphors etc•Do you like the language used? Why? How does it make you feel?•Compare this poem to another, which do you prefer? Why?•Can you add any lines of your own in

the same

style?

Non Fiction texts•What features have they used? – pictures, diagrams, headings etc•Ask how do you know that? Where in the text does it tell us?•Compare styles of NF to Fiction to show the different features•What is the purpose of the text? Why was it written? •Show how we use NF texts everyday e.g. newspapers, recipes – so see a range of examples

Phonics Ideas• Sound buttons • Noisy letters• Phoneme count – children show number of

phonemes on cards or fans.• Write digraphs on board and list words using the

correct grapheme – ay ai a-e• Hangman

Phonics Ideas• Flash digraph cards to encourage rapid recall.• Digraph snap, bingo and lotto.• Big books/ story and action (engages kinaesthetic

learners).• Grab game (say the letter sound and they grab

the right sound).

Ideas for at home• Complete the homework activities and send

them back!

• Play fun word games, look for words in the environment- eye spy

• Sing songs – make up new verses, play with words. Nursery rhymes are fabulous for this.

Ideas for at home• Visit the library –

• Visit websites and free apps- Teach your monster to read, Hairy phonics, cbeebies (Alphablocks).

• look at the different books

• try to find out specific information

• find books from different authors – does your child like anyone in particular?

Ideas for at home• Look around you for signs – what are they for?

Why are they written in different ways?

• Look at the layout, use of capitals, exclamation marks…

• When you visit different places look at the visitor information leaflets. Fill in visitor evaluation forms.

Thanks for listening.