Phonics and Reading for Parents 30 th September 2015

Why Phonics????? The government believes synthetic phonics should be the first strategy for teaching children to read. Almost all children who receive good teaching of phonics will learn the skills they need to tackle new words. They can then go on to read any kind of text fluently and confidently, and to read for enjoyment. At St Josephs, for the last 3 years, our Year 1 phonics screening pass rate has been above the national average (2014 National average 69%, St Josephs 88.9%)

Terminology Your child will be taught using the following terminology. Don’t be afraid to use it at home! Phoneme – smallest unit of speech sounds which make up a word. For example in the word ‘sit’ there are 3 phonemes – ‘s’, ‘i’ and ‘t’ Grapheme – the written representation of the phoneme e.g. in the above, the letters ‘s’, ‘i’ and ‘t’ Digraph – the written representation of a phoneme made up of 2 letters e.g. ‘ch’ Trigraph – the written representation of a phoneme made of 3 letters e.g. ‘igh’ Tricky Words – words which cannot be read using phonic knowledge as they do not ‘sound out’ e.g. ‘the’. Sometimes called ‘sight words’ as children have to remember them by sight.

Phase 1 rhythm and rhyme building listening skills tuning into sounds around them being able to identify initial sounds orally blending and segmenting.

Phase 2 Set 1: s, a, t, p Set 2: i, n, m, d Set 3: g, o, c, k Set 4: ck, e, u, r Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Phase 3 Set 6: j, v, w, x Set 7: y, z, zz, qu Consonant digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng Vowel digraphs: ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

What does a Phonics lesson look like? Revisit/reviewFlashcards to practice phonemes learnt so far. TeachTeach new phoneme air PracticeBuried treasure Air, zair, fair, hair, lair, pair, vair, sair, thair ApplyRead captions: My hair is black. I can see a pair of socks.

Blending Building words from phonemes to read. c a t

Segmenting Breaking down words for spelling. cat Synthetic phonics

Let’s have a play!!!

Comprehension is key !!! Reading is not only about the skill of blending to read words – it is about the understanding of what is being read. The picture books your child has brought home help facilitate comprehension skills as your child has had to look at the pictures to try to work out what is going on. When reading with your child develop their understanding by talking about the story – “Why does he look angry?”, “What might happen next?”, “Who do you think has taken the key?” etc. The ability to blend does not make a good reader. A good reader needs to have a good understanding.

Try to make learning phonics and reading as much fun as possible. Play games with your child – Can they spot any letters on the walk to school, around town etc? (Road signs, number plates, street names etc.) Can they make a word with the foam letters in the bath? Leave a message using magnetic letters on the fridge. Can they decipher it? Look out for free games on the computer or Ipad. The accompanying leaflet offers more fun learning guidance. Online games

Phonics isn’t the only way we learn how to read and write. We do lots of other activities including reading. General tips to support reading Once is never enough! - Encourage your child to re- read favorite books and poems as well as their school reading scheme book. Re-reading helps children read more quickly and accurately. Dig deeper into the story - Ask your child questions about the story you've just read. Say something like, "Why do you think he did that?" (you could use the ‘questions to get more form your child’s reading book’ for some varied ideas. Be patient - When your child is trying to sound out an unfamiliar word, give him or her time to do so. Remind to child to look closely at the first letter or letters of the word. Bedtime stories – Share picture books with your child regularly, it will help with their understanding of story structure.

If you have any questions at any time over the year, please see me in the playground or write a message in the communication books.