1. Phonics and Early Reading Presented by Natalie Pearson & Leigh Gardiner

2. Most important thing – From a very early age… Talking and Listening. Reading with and to your child Playing listening games Singing songs and rhymes Simple movement games All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

3. Letters and sounds 6 phases Phase 1 – underpins everything Phase 2 – 19 sounds Phase 3

4. Phase 1 Phase 1 is made up of 7 different areas: –Environmental sounds –Instrumental sounds –Body percussion –Rhythm and rhyme –Alliteration (words that begin with the same sound) –Voice sounds –Oral blending and segmenting

5. Phase 1 Your child will be learning to: –Have fun with sounds –Listen carefully –Develop their vocabulary –Speak confidently to you, other adults and children –Tune into sounds –Listen and remember sounds –Talk about sounds –Understand that spoken words are made up of different sounds

6. Phase 2 This is begun at the start of the Reception year Introduce 19 letters Reading 2 syllable words Begin to learn high frequency ‘tricky’ words

7. Phonics Correct pronunciation Correct vocabulary We all need to use the same language at home and at school. Little and often is the key. Does not have to be formal. Link it to your child ’ s interests.

8. Pronunciation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq hXUW_v-1shttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq hXUW_v-1s

9. Saying the sounds Your child will be taught how to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) correctly to make blending easier Sounds should be sustained where possible – eg sssss, mmmmm, ffff Avoid the ‘uh’ at the end eg b-uh, c- uh

10. Phoneme The smallest unit of sound in a word. There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

11. Grapheme Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

12. Blending Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p and merging or ‘ blending ’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘ cup ’ Sound buttons

13. Segmenting ‘ Chopping Up ’ the word to spell it out – eg cat becomes c – a – t The opposite of blending Vital skill for spelling

14. Segment and Blend these words… drep blom gris Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

15. Once children are good with single phonemes… DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ll ss zz oa ai TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh dge

16. Segmenting Activity How many phonemes are in each word? shelf dress sprint string

17. Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

18. VC and CVC words C = consonant, V = vowel VC words are those consisting of a vowel and then a consonant, eg: at, in, up CVC words follow the pattern consonant, vowel, consonant, eg: cat, dog, pet Words such as tick or bell also count as CVC words; although they contain four letters, they only have three sounds

19. Tricky words Words that are not phonically decodeable e.g. the no to go I was Some are ‘ tricky ’ to start with but will become decodeable once we have learned the harder phonemes e.g. out, down,

20. Phase 3 Learn the remainder of the alphabet 15 digraphs and 3 trigraphs Letter names Applying skills of blending and segmenting to support reading and writing More tricky words and learn to spell them

21. Phase 4 Continue to practise the sounds learnt Learn how to read and write CCVC words eg spin stop trip Tricky words – eg said so do have like some were there little

22. How can I help? Sing an alphabet song together Play ‘I spy’ Continue to play with magnetic letters, using some two-grapheme (letter) combinations, eg: r-ai-n = rain blending for reading rain = r-ai-n segmenting for spelling Praise your child for trying out words Ask for a list of tricky words Create phonic games with a timer Play pairs

23. Now you have the knowledge…. Play lots of sound and listening games with your child Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’

24. How do children learn to read? Phonics Sight vocabulary

25. How will we teach your child to learn to read? Providing a rich literary environment. Daily phonics sessions – learning our letters and sounds. Teaching of sight vocabulary. Guided reading. Read lots and lots of stories

26. Using the pictures The balloon is blue

27. Using their use of language. ‘On Monday he ate through one apple _________ he was still hungry.’ butsoor

28. Using their life experiences. The dog is in the kennel.

29. What does reading at home look like?

30. Walking through the book Find a quiet place to read Your child will turn the pages Talk about the front cover Find the title Talk about the pictures Draw attention to any key words

31. Reading together In the early days, encourage your child to point to each word How can you work out what the word is? Only encourage ‘sounding out’ if the word can actually be sounded out eg cat. Reread the sentence to gain fluency and understanding Encourage your child to use the picture clues to help Pause to encourage your child to predict what may happen next in the story

32. Pause, prompt, praise Pause when your child is unsure or hesitates for a few seconds Allow time for the child to check the pictures and the words to work out the meaning for themselves Then give a prompt – suggestions or clues that will lead your child to the right word Praise all efforts – be positive and encouraging so they will continue to try

33. After reading Talk about the book Sharing what parts of the story they enjoyed As the books develop, discussing characters, plot and alternative endings

34. And lastly… Keep it fun…we want to develop a life long love of books Keep reading to your child – anything from books to menus to comics that they are interested in