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“Being able to read is the most important skill children will learn during their early schooling and has far- reaching implications for lifelong confidence and well- being.” (‘Letters and Sounds’ Principles and Practice of High Quality Phonics)

The Rose Review The independent review of early reading, conducted by Jim Rose, confirmed that ‘high quality phonic work’ should be the prime means for teaching beginner readers to learn to read (and spell). The review also highlighted the importance of developing, from the earliest stages, children’s speaking and listening skills – ensuring that beginner readers are ready to get off to a good start in phonic work.

What is phonics? Phonics is the link between letters and the sounds they make. Using a highly structured programme working through 6 progressive phases, children are taught: 1. The full range of common letter/ sound correspondences. 2. To hear separate sounds within words. 3. To blend sounds together.

Phonics consists of: Identifying sounds (phonemes) in spoken words Recognising the common spellings of each phoneme Blending phonemes into words for reading Segmenting words into phonemes for spelling

We use the program ‘Letters and Sounds’ to deliver high quality phonic teaching within a language rich curriculum that gives high standards in reading and writing.

Letters and sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills in It aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of four, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven.

There are six overlapping phases. At Icknield, children start learning phonics in Reception and is taught on a daily basis throughout Early Years, Key Stage 1 and when required in Key Stage 2.

Phase One Phase one comprises of seven aspects; 1.Environmental Sounds 2. Instrumental Sounds 3. Body Percussion 4. Rhythm and Rhyme 5. Alliteration 6. Voice Sounds 7. Oral Blending and segmenting

Phase Two (Up to 6 weeks) By the end of phase two children should be able to read some vc and cvc words. Children will also learn to read the words ‘the, to, go, I and no.’ Five sets of letters are introduced – one set per week.

Phase Three (12 weeks) Children are taught another 25 graphemes. Children continue to blend and segment CVC words for reading and spelling. Children will then use this knowledge to blend and segment two syllable words.

Phase Four (4 – 6 weeks) By Phase 4 children are able to represent each of 42 phonemes by a grapheme. Children will be able to blend and segment CVC words for reading and spelling. Phase 4 is consolidation of children’s knowledge. Children are encouraged to practice blending for reading and segmenting for spelling of adjacent consonants.

Phase Five Throughout year one Children will broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes. They will learn alternative pronunciations of graphemes including split digraphs.

Phase Six (Throughout year 2) Children working at phase six can read hundreds of words automatically. Children can decode words quickly and silently. Children’s spelling will be phonemically accurate. During this phase children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.

Phonics Assessment The Phonics Check In June all Year One children undertake a phonics check. The aim is to check that a child is making progress in phonics. If a child has not reached the expected standard we will ensure that additional support is given to help your child progress in year 2.

Key Terms Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound in a word. e.g. p-a-t, s-ee-n, b-l-a-ck Grapheme: letter(s) representing a phoneme. Digraph: two letters, which make one phoneme. A consonant digraph contains two consonants e.g. sh A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel e.g. oy Trigraph: three letters, which make one phoneme e.g. igh Split digraph: a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent e.g. make, dome Oral blending: Hearing a series of spoken sounds (phonemes) and merging them together to make a spoken word. No text is used. Blending: Recognising the letter-sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p, and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’. Segmenting: Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (eg h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound (phoneme) to form the word ‘him’.

Daily Sessions Formal phonics sessions will begin next week Sessions last minutes After the session children practise applying the new knowledge through targeted and differentiated activities (guided reading, letter formation, blending games) etc. Children are taught reading and spelling throughout the week. Each session follows the same format. The activities used to teach vary and can be adapted. They are multisensory and appeal to different learning styles.

How sessions run Introduce Objective Revisit and Review Teach Practise Apply Assessment

Pronunciation Teaching and supporting phonics requires a technical skill in pronunciation Phonemes should be articulated clearly and precisely strategies/letter-and-sounds- %E2%80%93-articulation-phonemes- vowels-and-consonants strategies/letter-and-sounds- %E2%80%93-articulation-phonemes- vowels-and-consonants

Phonics Activity: Sound buttons Put a sound button under each grapheme, segmenting the word into its individual sounds e.g. r ai n Try these words: bridge slaughter plank her

Let’s learn phonics! Audience participation is mandatory!

Tapestry videos Videos posted on Tapestry on a weekly basis detailing new sounds and tricky words with follow up activities

Useful websites nological-awareness/