1. Phonics For Parents
Louise Naidoo
February 2015

2. Today we are aiming to...
Explain what phonics is and how we use phonics to help your children learn to read and spell.
Share information about how to pronounce the sounds and write the letters.
Share ways that you can help your child at home.

3. What is Phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to link sounds and letters.
It helps them to learn to read and spell words.
Phonics is taught in a very structured way – starting with the easiest sounds.
It is currently thought to be the most effective way of teaching children to read fluently and for enjoyment.

4. How is Phonics taught at Chesterhouse?
Phonics, spelling and vocabulary is a key component of the Cambridge Primary English Curriculum Framework right through to Grade 6.
We follow the Letters and Sounds programme, which is endorsed by Cambridge.
Within Letters and Sounds there are Six Phases of phonic development.
At Chesterhouse, children take part in high-quality phonics sessions. These are fun sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games, where the emphasis is on children’s active participation. They learn to use their phonic knowledge for reading and writing activities and in their independent play.
The 6 phases…more detail later and on handout

5. What do children learn in Reception and Grade 1?
Children are taught to:
Recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes (e.g. ‘s’ = ssssssss).
Identify the sounds that combinations of letters make (e.g. ‘ch’, ‘ee’, ‘igh’).
Blend these sounds together to say and read words.
Segment these sounds to spell words.
When referring to ‘combinations of letters’ – mention the terms ‘digraphs’ (where two letters make one sound) and ‘trigraphs’ (where three letters make one sound) as explained on the Phonics Dictionary hand-out.
Blending is the skill children need to be able to read
Segmenting is the skill for spelling

6. How many sounds are there?
We teach 44 sounds (or phonemes).

7. that we pronounce these
It is VERY important
that we pronounce these
sounds correctly!
Say ‘t’
not ‘tuh’
Say ‘c’
not ‘cuh’
Say ‘p’
not ‘puh’
Say ‘l’
not ‘L’.
Stress – this is different to how we were taught at school. Saying the sounds purely helps children when they are blending sounds to read words.
Show video ‘Articulation of Phonemes’ at this point. (Note - this is a UK video, so we do need to take into account the SA accent!)
Say ‘mmm’
not ‘muh’
Say ‘ch’
not ‘chuh’

8. The 44 phonemes s/ss a t p i n m d g o c/ k/ck e u r h b f/ff l/ll j vw x y
z/zz qu ch sh
voiced & unvoiced th ng ai ee
igh oa
short oo
long oo ar or ur ow oi
ear
air
ure er
Explain this PowerPoint will be made available to all parents (on website) so they have a sound reference point at home!
Note order – not alphabetical for a reason. Explain importance of incremental sequence = Building on their existing knowledge (hence s a t p i n – can make a number of words from these sounds) Immediate success = excited learners!
Note - this is the Letters and Sounds order (if you Google, other phonics schemes may have a slightly different order)
Parents may ask why there are 2 th sounds:
Voiced th (put your hand on your throat - you can feel your voice box vibrating) – like when you say the, then, this (Jolly Phonics – tongue out a little way – bit rude)
Unvoiced th (more ‘breathy’) – like when you say thumb, thin, thick (Jolly Phonics – tongue out a little way – very rude)

9. Jolly Phonics Actions
Can support the articulation of the phonemes with Jolly Phonics actions to further encourage a kinaesthetic approach. (demo)
Explain there are also actions and songs – you tube

10. Can you Beat the Timer?
One of the resources you may hear children talking about (esp in Grade 1) is Splash Phonics – an interactive teaching resources aligned with Letters and Sounds.
Every session, they review previous learning by playing ‘Beat the Timer’, where they have to say the sounds they see and see how many they can get right in 2 mins. Parents turn! (Splash Phonics 1, Unit 24, Review)

11. c u p Blending Recognising the sounds in a written word, for example:
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’. c u p
Explain – no use children just learning the sounds in isolation, they have to be able to blend them together to make words – this starts off as oral blending (in Nursery), then children blend sounds to read short words and captions (Reception) and when they are ready, onto books.
Every child learns to link letters and sounds and blend sounds at a different rate.
We do not want to rush your child as it is important they have the time they need to consolidate the letters and sounds they have learnt. We also want them to enjoy phonics and develop a love of reading.
The decision about when they are ready to take reading books home is at the discretion of the teacher.

12. Segmenting ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out.
The opposite of blending.
Use your ‘ROBOT ARMS’.
This is the reverse of the blending process – children are taught to segment the sounds they hear, writing a grapheme for each one, in order to spell words correctly. We encourage them to use “phonics fingers” or “robot arms” to help them segment the sounds. It is important during Phase 3 that they know one sound may be represented by 2/3 letters (link back to digraphs and trigraphs).

13. Phonic Phases Help your child at Phase 2 Make flashcards!
I can see a
p –e -g
Make flashcards!
Sound talking
Too much to teach those 44 phonemes and their various graphemes all in one go, so programme has been carefully broken up into phases (see handout).
In Reception and Grade 1 at this point, children spend a lot of time on Phases 2 and 3.
Flashcards – helps with recognising and linking phonemes/graphemes
Sound talking – helps to blend
Magnetic letters – helps to segment
Magnetic letters

14. Phase 2 Fun!
Pound a Sound!
Phonics Baskets – find out what sound/s your child is working on and make a collection of objects that uses that sound.
Water Balloon Phonics – write middle and end letters on a water balloon and encourage chn to throw the balloon at a starting sound that would make the word make sense – e.g. bug (use lower case, not capital letters please!)
Pound a Sound! – check their recognition by asking them to hit a particular sound
The Sound Muncher likes to eat things that start with our sound of the day/week! What will you feed him?

15. Help your child at Phase 3ck th a n t
sat chip
wish train
Circus Wagon Word Builder – how many th words can you make?
When playing I spy, remember, – shell is spelled with sh not s
Explain and model sound buttons (also called baked beans and sausage sounds! – one letter /one sound = baked bean and two/three letters for one sound = sausage!) Sound buttons are very important because they help children recognise that even though a word may have 3 sounds, it can still have 4 letters (e.g. chip and wish)
Sound Buttons
Sound “I Spy”

16. 2 3 3 4 3 3 How many phonemes? car ring spoon beard night queen
Parents to say how many phonemes exist for each object they see, allowing the trainer to assess whether they understand that words may have more letters than sounds.
night
queen 3

17. Phase 3 Fun! Sucker Stick Sounds Phoneme Fishing
Single sounds on pegs and digraphs/trigraphs on sucker sticks – word building
Find sounds in the water tray – good for grapheme recognition and word building
Active reading – great for reading HFW (next slide)
Phoneme Fishing

18. High Frequency Words Decodable Tricky it in is with down the to go
Remember, some words that were once tricky will become decodable in later phases.
Some words will always be tricky and so need to be learnt in different ways.
it in is
with down
the to go
they are my
came
came
High Frequency words are the words children are most likely to encounter in their early reading.
Some HFW are decodable, meaning that the children can use the sounds they have learnt to read them. Letters and Sounds carefully matches decodable HFW to the relevant phases.
Some HFW are ‘tricky’ and this must be explained to chn. They need to know phonics cannot be used to read every word in the world – it is simply a very useful tool. We still have to read other reading strategies such as prediction, picture cues, leaving a the tricky word out and coming back to it later with a suggestion for what makes sense etc.
As children’s phonic knowledge increases, some words that were once tricky may become decodable – e.g. ‘came’ is initially a tricky word, but by the time they get to Phase 5 they will have learnt about the split a_e digraph making the long /ai/ sound, so it will no longer be ‘tricky’.
However, some words will always be ‘tricky’ and need to be learnt. Mnemonics can be helpful in doing this (see pics to teach -ould words and how to spell because).

19. Please remember....
Use the Literacy at Home/Homework book activities – it will make a huge difference!
Play lots of sound and listening games with your child.
Read as much as possible to (and with) your child.
Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’.
Ask your child’s teacher if you are unsure – we are all more than happy to help!

20. Thank you for coming
Any questions?