Phonics Workshop for Parents North Elmham Primary School Phonics Workshop for Parents

Synthetic Phonics We use an approach called Synthetic Phonics. Phonics for reading Children are taught to break down a word and say each phoneme (sound). Phonics for writing Children are taught to reverse this process, saying the word and segment the sounds Blend to read Segment to spell e.g. children are taught to break a 3 letter word down and pronounce each phoneme (sound) for each letter in turn, i.e. ‘cat’ would be broken down into C-a-t. Synthetic phonics for writing is the reverse of the sequence Children are taught to say a word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, e.g. d-o-g. the children would write a grapheme (letter) for each of the phonemes heard and then produce the written word ‘dog’.

Key terms… Phoneme – the smallest unit of a sound in a word. Grapheme – what we write to represent a sound (phoneme). This can be more than one letter eg. ai, igh Oral blending – hearing a group of sounds and ‘merging’ them together to make a spoken word. Blending – recognising the letter sounds in a written word and then ‘merging’ them eg. s/a/t

Key terms continued… Digraph – 2 letters that make one sound. Consonant digraphs – two consonants next to each other that make one sound – sh, ck, th Vowel digraphs – contains at least one vowel to make one sound - ai, ee, ar, oy

Key terms continued… Trigraph – 3 letters that make one sound. igh ear air

The Phonic Alphabet They should be taught to write each letter, forming it accurately. The English language has 44 phonemes Children are taught to produce the sounds as shortly as possible Stretchy or bouncy Stretchy or bouncy British spoken English is generally reckoned to use 44 sounds or ‘phonemes’. Technically a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference to a meaning of a word. 20 of these are vowel sounds and 24 are consonant sounds.

Enunciation Teaching phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation Phonemes should be articulated clearly and precisely. Lisa

Jolly Phonics Each sound is supported by a story, song and action. Jolly Phonics worksheet Karen One of our support materials we use in school is called Jolly Phonics. We will share with you some of the actions to support the sounds.

Letters and Sounds 6 phases Phase 1-listening to sounds Phase 2 and beyond- introducing the phonemes. Duncan New Letters and Sounds document is split into 6 phases.

Phase 1:Good listening skills Speaking and listening skills (games) Rhyme Alliteration Duncan The development of speaking and listening skills Listening games Rhyme etc Alliteration- Silly Sally slipped on a slippery snake.

Phase 2 s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f ff l ll ss 19 phonemes and graphemes Blend and segment Tricky words s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f ff l ll ss Lisa We introduce the 1st 19 phonemes and their matching graphemes. Phonic time 4 times a week where we introduce and practise phonic activities-reading, writing etc

Phase 3 j v w x y zz qu ch sh th ng ai ee or ie oa oi oo ou ar er Next 25 graphemes j v w x y zz qu ch sh th ng ai ee or ie oa oi oo ou ar er Duncan Introduce another 25 graphemes Move onto harder middle vowel phonemes for e.g. ‘light’ the children are taught ‘I’ sound is represented by the letters ‘igh’ in the middle of words. They are then taught alternative ‘I’ spellings in phase 5, e.g. ‘ie’ (tie) and ‘i-e’ (like).

Phase 4 At Phase 4, we teach children to read and spell longer words using the same graphemes but containing adjacent consonants (shown in blue). E.g. strain sleep fright stoat spoon Phase 5 We teach children that the same grapheme can represent a different sound. E.g. snow cow We begin teaching spelling choices and rules. E.g Is it ‘train’, ‘trayn’ or ‘trane’? This last part of Phase 5 moves on from phonics to spelling. Learning to spell each word correctly is a long process .

Phase 6 concentrates on making the correct spelling choice, especially for the long vowels. By this phase, children are learning spelling rather than phonics. E.g. dreem or dream? lite or light? caik or cake? Children are taught spelling rules including how to add suffixes to make longer words: E.g stop stops bunch bunches light lightest heavy heaviest sleep sleeping play played

Techniques we use at school... Robot arms to blend Phoneme frames to write Sound boards Phoneme buttons Tapping it out

Reading Your child will read at least twice a week with an adult at school. (once with a parent helper) Any reading that you do at home should be logged in the Home-School Diary. Please continue to choose a library book. In the library, coloured cards - match the schemes we use Karen

Tricky Words I will send these home in coloured sets which match the words we are learning in school. They are ‘tricky’ because we cannot use our phonics to sound them out. EG. Said We need to learn to read and write them by sight! This helps with the fluency. How? Using magnetic letters on the fridge Writing word cards and hiding them around the house Whatever suits your child – make it FUN! Karen

How to help at home Challenge the children to find objects that begin with a certain sound. Play ‘I Spy’ with phonemes not letter names. Practise letter formation. Play rhyming bingo, lotto and extend rhyming strings. Play games with word cards. Make sentences with word cards. Duncan

Useful websites… The following websites have some free phonics games for children to play: http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ http://www.ictgames.com/literacy.html http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/pl ay/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU4FKj0OmWs Also, check out ‘Mr Thorne Does Phonics’ on youtube.

Any questions? MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL!