Teaching and Learning Phonics and Reading at Mary Exton Primary School

Aims To help parents understand the basics of phonics and some useful phonics terms so they can help their children at home To share how phonics is taught at Mary Exton To explain the process of reading books To explain Rainbow Words To give parents an opportunity to ask questions

What is phonics? Phonics is the link between letters and the sounds they make During daily phonics sessions the children are taught: To match written letters with their sound To hear separate sounds within words To blend sounds together

What are speech sounds? Although there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, there are more than 40 speech sounds

Some definitions! PHONEME – the smallest unit of sound in a word GRAPHEME – what we write to represent a sound / phoneme – for some phonemes this could be more than one letter e.g. ai, igh

The beginning…… ORAL BLENDING (robot talk) - Hearing a series of spoke sounds and merging (blending) them together to make a spoken word - no text is used For example when a child hears /b/u/s, they will say bus If a child has this skill they will usually find reading printed words easier

Next ……. BLENDING – recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example seeing c-u-p in a book and blending the sounds to read the word cup and SOUND BUTTONS – marking each sound under each letter

Then…….. DIGRAPH – two letters which make one sound A consonant digraph contains two consonants next to each other, but they make a single sound e.g. sh, ck, th, ll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel but the two letters still make a single sound e.g. ai, ee, ar

Nearly there…… TRIGRAPH – three letters, that make one sound, for example :

Do you want to have a go!

Daily Phonics Every day the children have a 20 minute session of phonics. • Fast paced approach Lessons encompass a range of games, songs and rhymes We use Letters and Sounds and Jolly Phonics to aid planning There are 6 phonics phases which the children work through at their own pace They will all start at phase 2 Phoneme frames, sound buttons, full circle, countdown, flashcards, buried treasure

Saying the sounds Saying the sounds: Practising the sounds: Sounds should be articulated clearly and precisely http://www.teachfind.com/national-strategies/letter-and-sounds-%E2%80%93-articulation-phonemes-vowels-and-consonants Practising the sounds: Regular use of the sound mat

Finally …………… TRICKY WORDS - these are the many words that cannot be blended because they are irregular. the was said you some

New scheme introduced this year to help incentivise the children to learn the tricky words – home practice Lists of coloured tricky words will be sent home and are only changed when the child can read them all fluently They are rewarded by being able to colour in the corresponding colour on their rainbow. Reward for completing their rainbow Packs with more information will be issued before half term

Reading Books Each child will be heard to read once a week by their Key Worker They will change books and check Rainbow Words Up to 5 books will be issued at this time Should aim to read one book each day Write a short comment in your child’s Reading Record Book each time they read Starting books have no words Children will also take part in guided reading sessions in school

How to help….. Take time to talk about the book Ask lots of questions e.g. what is happening? How does X feel? Praise any blending your child gets correct Don’t correct everything, balance the praise and the corrections and revisit the text more than once If your child is struggling, speak to their Key Worker

Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents. Don’t forget… Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents.

Useful Websites www.parentsintouch.co.uk/Phonics-worksheets www.jollylearning.co.uk www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.focusonphonics.co.uk www.cbeebies.com