1. Helping your child to read. Presentation to Nursery and Reception Parents and Carers. October 2014 St. Michael’s Primary School

2. Letters and Sounds The school follows the Letters and Sounds synthetic phonics programme and draws on resources from Jolly Phonics and Phonicsbug/Bug Club.

3. Learning Letter Sounds Spoken English uses about 42 sounds: phonemes. These phonemes are represented by letters: graphemes. The alphabet contains only 26 letters, but we use it to make all the graphemes that represent the phonemes of English. In other words… a sound can be represented by a letter e.g. ‘s’ or a group of letters e.g. ‘th’ or ‘igh’ AND There are sometimes more than one way to represent a sound e.g ‘igh’ ‘i-e’ ‘–y’ !! Learning to read and write is complex!

4. Synthetic Phonics Children are taught to read letters or groups of letters by saying the sound(s) they represent. They are then taught how to read words by combining the sounds together, from left to right, to make words ('blending') and how to listen and isolate different sounds within words ('segmenting'). N.B. Oral segmenting and blending of words before your child even knows what letters are is vital.

5. Letters and Sounds: Phase One (Nursery) The aim of this phase is to foster children’s speaking and listening skills as preparation for learning to read with phonics. a six-phase programme.

6. Phase One (Nursery) Aspect 1: General sound discrimination – environmental sounds Aspect 2: General sound discrimination – instrumental sounds Aspect 3: General sound discrimination – body percussion Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme Aspect 5: Alliteration Aspect 6: Voice sounds Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting

7. Phase One (Nursery) Parents can play a vital role in helping their children develop these skills, by encouraging their children to listen carefully and talk extensively about what they hear, see and do. Read and tell your child Nursery Rhymes. Encourage them to repeat the rhyming words with you. Sing songs and play instruments – develop rhythm. Play games using initial sounds e.g. I spy (with my little eye something beginning with /c/. Also expose your child to books: to look at; handle; follow as you read to them so that they become aware of the concept of print and the left to right, top to bottom tracking of words and sentences across the page. Foster a love of books and reading.

8. Phases Two – Four (Reception) This is when when systematic, high quality phonic work begins. Children learn: How to represent each of the 42 sounds by a letter or sequence of letters. How to blend sounds together for reading and how to segment (split) words for spelling. Letter names e.g. through an alphabet song. How to read and spell some high frequency ‘tricky’ words containing sounds not yet learnt (e.g. they, my, her, you).

9. Sounds Correct pronunciation of the letter sounds is essential to aid fluent reading and spelling. c-a-t = cat but ker- a- ter = kerater? Learning c as ker and b as ber can lead to spelling errors such as bd = bird and crtin = curtain Good oral segmenting skills also help with spelling: How many sounds in bird?

10. As soon as children know a few letters they can begin to read and spell words containing those letters. Your child will bring home sets of words to read such as: at sat pat tap sap IMPORTANT: Please note these words are not be taught as sight words nor remembered without giving thought to the individual letters and sounds. Your child should read the sound for each letter and then blend it to read the word. Also cut up the words and make sentences. Of course once they can read them on sight they no longer need to segment and blend each word.

11. However … To read simple sentences, it is necessary for children to know some words that have unusual or untaught spellings. These are known as ‘tricky’ words and need to be learned by heart. It should be noted that, when teaching these words, it is important to always start with sounds already known in the word, then focus on the 'tricky' part.

12. High frequency and ‘tricky’ words There are 100 high frequency (common) words that recur frequently in much of the written material young children read and that they need when they write. High frequency words have often been regarded in the past as needing to be taught as sight words – to be learnt as visual wholes. The vast majority of these words are, however, decodable once letter sounds have been taught. E.g. and may at one time been taught as a sight word using flash cards, however it is fully decodable: a – n - d and children should start by segmenting a blending such words to decode them. As they read these words many times in text they will become ‘sight words’ or words that children can read ‘on sight’.

13. High frequency ‘tricky’ words to be learned during Phases 2 and 3 the to I go no he she we me be was my you they her all are into These words will be sent home each week, on cards, as children learn them. Please use these with the decodable words already sent home to make sentences to read.

14. Progression The Letters and Sounds Programme suggests an order for teaching the letters, and a fast pace of one Set per week. It recognises, however, that children’s personal experience of letters varies enormously. Most importantly, it progresses from the simple to the more complex aspects of phonics at a pace that is suitable for the children who are learning.

15. Reading Progression The idea is for children to become skilled in all these areas as they progress in their reading, at their own rate. Reading books and the sentences brought home are levelled within the Letters and Sounds phases. Your child may be at one level for a short while or maybe longer. It is not a race to progress through the book levels! Several books at each level may need to be read for your child to experience the high frequency words they need to be able to read in more complex texts. It is also useful to re-read texts to improve fluency and to ask comprehension questions.

16. It is vital that children are given texts to read that they can easily decode and blend using only letters, and tricky words they have learnt so far. This will ensure that they develop the skills of segmenting and blending as the first method to read a word rather than develop default skills such as guessing.

17. What about real books? As your child becomes more proficient in segmenting and blending, they will bring home books with captions and words which use graphemes they have learnt so far. Additionally,they will bring home a freely chosen library book for you to read with them. They should only attempt to read words they can decode using letters learnt so far and read high frequency words they have learnt. An adult can read any un-decodable words for the child and help with unusual pronunciations of words.

18. What about comprehension? Phonics is only part of being a successful reader. As your child reads the early decodable captions and sentences, you can check their understanding of what they have read: a cat in a hat Ask: Where is the cat? I can see a pair of boots on the mat. Ask: Where are the boots? Why do you think they are there?

19. Summary Early language is vital for reading: Talk with your child; sing songs and nursery rhymes; play around with words by asking your child to split words up or blend sounds. Read books with, and to your child. Help your child segment and blend new words to read and help them with unusual pronunciation. Only use picture clues and reading on to help work out the meaning of a word – not to guess what the word is. Your child will progress through the phases of letters and Sounds by reading books at their own rate. Ask your child comprehension questions or ask them to tell you what the book is about. Encourage them to look back at the text if they are not sure. Re-read books to improve fluency and comprehension.

20. Useful websites Letters and Sounds https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1 90599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf Phonicsbug/ Bug Club http://www.bugclub.co.uk/ http://www.bugclub.co.uk/ Letters and Sounds.com (on-line games) http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-2-games.html Articulation of phonemes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v- 1s&safe=active