Phonics

graphemeletters

phoneme the sound the letters

make

segmentbreaking a word into the sounds within it

c/a/t

blendputting the sounds back

together to hear the

word as a whole

I spy with my little eye…

bus

bag

bat

ball

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear sounds in spoken language. Although this is all part of phase 1 phonics, it

is important that children have a secure understanding of these skills, so that they can progress in reading and writing.

Please continue to play games that encourage children to hear different sounds. The Letters and Sounds website has

many games you can play too.

Complete Rhyming StringsIf you can’t think of anymore

words, can you make up your own silly words that sound the same e.g. ten, hen, pen, spen, chen

Clap the Syllables in Wordse.g. Let’s name the fruit in the

fruit basketApp-le, grape, ban-an-a, mel-

on

AlliterationChoose a letter and see how many things you can name

beginning with that letter

Play I spy..To begin with let children choose from a

small selection of objects and discuss their initial sounds as you try and work

out what it is that they are spyinge.g. it can’t be teddy because teddy

begins with ‘t’ and you said ‘m’

Robot TalkingMove your arms like a robot and say each sound in simple words and then blend them to say the

word as a whole e.g. d/o/g = dog, p/e/n = pen

In phase 2 children learn

the initial letter sounds. They

are taught in this order, a

set per week.Set 1: s, a, t, pSet 2: i, n, m, dSet 3: g, o, c, kSet 4: ck, e, u, r

Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

We use the Jolly Phonics

songs and freeze frames to

support learning. The songs

can be found on youtube if

you would like to use them at home.

The beginning of phase 3

Our daily phonics lessons are taught in 4 parts.

Revisit and review - We look at the sounds that we have already learnt either using flashcards or our sound mats. This is done really quickly with the actions being used as we say the sound.

Teach - We learn our new sound, looking at the formation of the letter and the rhyme/song that goes with it. We will also introduce our new tricky word.

Practice - We play games that enable us to blend and segment simple words using the new and previously learnt sounds. Such as sorting words with the new sound, robot talking words containing the new sound.

Apply - We will read or write a caption together or independently. This will contain our new sound and tricky word. For example The cat sat on a big mat.

It is important that children say and hear the pure sound and do not add ‘ugh’ to the end. If you

would like examples of how to pronounce each phase 2 and 3 sound there is a useful video on

YouTube linked below. Alternatively speak to your child’s class teacher who will be happy to help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksblMiliA8

We are still currently learning our

phase 2 sounds in school and will

look at phase 3 sounds as part of

our spring parent workshop after

Christmas.

We don’t just use sound mats during phonics lessons, we use

them all the time when we are

writing too. Even when children

have learnt their sounds, we use sound mats to make sure they

are forming letters correctly.

There is a copy of the phase 2

sound mat in your child’s Home

School Diary. Please use it to

support writing at home.

Tricky words are words that can not be decoded by segmenting and blending and have to be learnt

on sight. To support your child learning these words, you could stick them up around your home,

anytime you see a word you have to say it. These tricky words can be found in your child’s Home

School Diary.

At Winton we strive to embed a love of reading in all children from as early as reception. The children are

exposed to a variety of stories throughout the school day including picture books, short chapter books,

audio books and visiting our school library once a week. Above are a few ideas how you can help to

develop a love of reading at home and it is important to ensure reading experiences are positive. If you

would like support with encouraging your child to read at home, please speak to their class teacher.

There is also a helpful video which you can find on the reception page of our school website.

Above is Winton’s reading flight path, some children will move quicker or slower through these colour bands depending on their ability, but it is used as a guide for an expected child. Once children begin to learn phase 2 phonics they will begin to access pink books using their segmenting and blending skills to decode words. These books will also include the tricky words children need to know on sight. We want children to be able to confidently read a banded book without overt segmenting and blending before moving on to the nextcolour band. Above are also examples of the colour bookmarks that are sent home each time your child moves along the flight path. The bookmarks will give you information on what we expect your child to be able to do when reading at this level and includescharacteristics of the band. On the back you will find tips on how to support your child with their reading at home.

Children are all at different stages with their

writing ability; some children find it easier than

others, but it is important that we value all

stages. Whether children are mark making or

beginning to form letters, if they have nothing

to say then they will have nothing to write. It is

important that we encourage children to talk

about what they have drawn or written and

that they give meaning to the marks they

have made. There may only be a few letters

on the page or even a few squiggles, but

when asked what it says, a child may tell you

the entire story of Red Riding Hood – this is

brilliant!

To enable children to write, they have to be able to hold a pencil confidently and have efficient letter

formation and handwriting. To develop this children need to have good gross and fine motor control.

Gross motor control is the term used to describe the development of controlled movements of the whole

body or limbs. It is particularly important to develop good balance and posture in relation to handwriting

skills.

Fine motor control is the term used to describe smaller movements, usually of the hands and fingers.

Crossing the midline means that a body part (e.g. hand or foot) is able to spontaneously move over to the

other side of the body to work there. For example; we all do this when we scratch our elbow. On a physical

level, when your child spontaneously crosses the midline with the dominant hand, the dominant hand is

going to get the practice that it needs to develop good fine motor skills for writing.

Independent writing can happen anywhere and

can be about anything. Exposing children to a

variety of writing styles encourages them to try

them themselves in their independent learning. We

may assume a child knows what writing a list or a

card looks like but if they have never seen one

before then they won’t know where to start. You

can help at home by asking your child to help you

write a shopping list or write a birthday card

together for a family member. Remember we don’t

expect everything to be spelt correctly, children

should use their phonic knowledge where they can

to spell phonetically plausible words, but tricky

words do need to be spelt correctly. The sound

mats in your child’s Home School Diary can help

with this.

We practise our cursive handwriting daily. Letter-joins is a resource we use to support with handwriting

formation and you are able to access this at home on an Ipad, laptop or printable activities are

available. If you do not have the home login for this, please speak to your child’s class teacher.

It is really important that your child has a good understanding of number and this is evident in the new Early Adopter

curriculum. There is now a huge focus on number and understanding number and patterns within numbers.

They need to know the 3ness of 3. They need to be able to recognise the numeral, know what number comes

before and after it and know what the amount of 3 looks like. They also need to know that 3 can be represented in

many different ways. For example; look at the red, blue and green spots, there are 3 of each, they are just

represented differently.

We will be using 5 and 10 frames to enable the children to represent numbers; you had a 10 frame in your Maths

Pack which we sent out in September. You could challenge your child to pick a number and put that amount of

buttons, counters, pieces of Lego onto the frame. Then get them to rearrange them on the frame- how many do

you have now? It is still the same amount, you have just moved them so they look different.

With the new curriculum, the children also have to have a solid understanding of number bonds.

These are pairs of numbers that make up another number.

The children have to instantly recall number bonds for all numbers 1-5; addition and subtraction facts. It is

really useful to help the children see that some number bonds are reversible, this helps with recall. If we

know that 1+4=5 then we also know that 4+1=5 - we swap the first two numbers over. We would show this

practically to make it very clear like in the picture of the hoops above.

We will explore number bonds using lots of practical resources and play games such as I have 5 bears, 3

are outside of the cave, how many are asleep inside the cave?

Subitising is the ability to instantaneously recognise the number of objects in a small group (1-5) without the need to

count them. This is known as conceptual subitising and is an essential element for developing mathematical skills.

Do we know how many there are without counting them?

You can only subitise quantities 1-5, anything amounts higher and you are using numbers 1-5 to help you. For

example; if you look at the cats in the picture above you are probably seeing 2 rows of 3, which you know makes 6

Or 3 columns of 2 which you know makes 6.

We want children to see regular patterns of numbers, such as dice and also random arrangements of quantities to

develop their subitising skills.

Shape, Space and Measure has changed somewhat with the new Early Adopter curriculum we are following. The

changes that have been made enable children to have a deeper understanding of shape through exploration and

play.

We have purchased new resources that enable children to explore pattern, rotation and manipulation of shapes. This

will help develop spatial awareness and reasoning skills. We will use tangrams, pattern blocks and magnetic 2D shapes

which can be joined together to make 3D shapes. As the year progresses the children will increasingly be able to

follow more complex 2D pictures to make 3D constructions.

To develop spatial awareness we will also encourage the children to complete jigsaws with increasing complexity.

For measure it is the vocabulary that is important. We will be modelling comparative language of “than” and

encouraging the children to do the same, such as “this bear is heavier than the pencil.”

Last year we launched Numbots in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 as a resource to help develop

children’s mental maths skills. Numbots is designed to develop children’s understanding, recall and

fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so they can move from counting to calculating. The

challenges slowly build upon one another to ensure children have a secure understanding of each

number and its value. The programme will identify numbers that each individual child struggles with

and increase the child’s exposure to that number. The challenges help develop children’s subitising

skills, being able to recognise how many nuts or blocks there without counting (up to 5) and as their

number knowledge develops they will be able to notice relationships in numbers e.g there are 4 blocks

missing, I know 10-4=6 so there are 6 gold blocks.

Numbots only needs to be played for around 5 minutes, 3 times a week.