Teaching Phonics through Letters and Sounds Thursday 12th October 2017 "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr. Seuss

We listen to each other and every voice is heard.

Programme Welcome and Overview of session. Expectations of what children should be able to do by the end of the reception year. Five basic skills for Reading and Writing. The 6 Phases of teaching phonics. Useful websites. Questions.

Early Learning Goal - Literacy Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest. Reading Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read. Writing Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible. EYFS Framework 2017

Five basic skills for Reading and Writing 1. Learning letter sounds. 2. Learning to form letters correctly. 3. Blending sounds to read words. 4. Identifying and separating sounds in words (segmenting) to spell words. 5. Spelling tricky words.

Why teach Phonics? The ability to read and write well is a vital skill for all children, paving the way for an enjoyable and successful school experience. Phonics helps children to develop good reading and spelling skills e.g. cat can be sounded out for reading and spelling Here at Ripple Primary School we follow the ‘Letters and Sounds’ scheme of work supported by ‘Jolly Phonics’. Children have a 20 minute daily Phonics lesson.

The 6 Phases Letters and Sounds is divided into six phases, with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. Children have time to practise and rapidly expand their ability to read and spell words. They are also taught to read and spell ‘tricky words’, which are words with spellings that are unusual.

Phase 1 Showing an awareness of rhyme and alliteration. Distinguishing between sounds in the environment. Exploring and experimenting with sounds and words. Discriminating speech sounds in words. Beginning to orally blend and segment phonemes.

Please refer to the Learning Phonics hand-out. This gives you some suggestions on how you can support your child’s Phase 1 skills at home.

Phase 2 Learning the first 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound (phoneme) for each. Blending sounds for reading and segmenting for spelling simple words, e.g. cat, dog. Understanding that we can write sounds (phonemes). These are called graphemes. Reading simple captions.

Letter progression (one set per week) 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

Key Vocabulary * A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. There are 44 that we teach. Correct pronunciation is vital. * A grapheme is the written form of a phoneme. Children need to learn to recognise and write all graphemes.

The difference between graphemes and phonemes Phonemes you hear How many phonemes can you hear in cat? Graphemes you see Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

This is where it gets tricky! Phonemes are represented by graphemes. A grapheme can consist of 1, 2 or more letters. A phoneme can be represented/spelled in more than one way ( cat, kennel, choir) The same grapheme may represent more than one phoneme ( me, met)

Blending Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, e.g. c-u-p, and ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word cup.

Segmenting ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out. The opposite of blending. Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m, s-t-or-k) and writing down letters for each sound (phoneme) to form the word him and stork.

Blend and segment these words to read and spell them… c-e-t p-u-m b-o-n g-a-k Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

Phase 3 Learning 7 more letters of the alphabet and their written form (grapheme). Reading and spelling a wide range of simple CVC words. Reading and spelling some words with 2 letter graphemes, e.g. chip, moon, night. Reading simple captions and sentences.

Letter progression Letter Progression: Set 6 - j, v, w, x Set 7 - y, z, zz, qu Graphemes: ear, air, ure, er, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo Pairs of letters (Consonant digraphs): ch, sh, th, ng.

Teaching Letter Sounds (Phonemes) Correct pronunciation is vital. We all need to use the same language at home and at school. Little and often is the key. Try to make activities fun. If your child is enjoying activities they will learn more.

Common Exception words (Tricky Words) There are many words in the English language that cannot be read using phonics. Children need to be taught these separately and simply recall them from memory. Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become easier to work out once we have learned the harder phonemes, e.g. out, there.

The Alphabet … don’t forget to practice saying or singing the alphabet with your child. This is a really important skill that they need for later learning!

Phase 4 Children entering Phase Four will be able to represent each of the 42 phonemes by a grapheme, and be able to blend phonemes to read CVCC (tent, chimp) words and segment CCVC (swim, sport)words for spelling. They will consolidate their knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words. Children will have some experience in reading simple two-syllable words and captions. They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some tricky words.

Phase 5 In Phase Five, children will learn more graphemes and phonemes. For example, they already know ‘ai’ as in rain, but now they will be introduced to ‘ay’ as in day and ‘a-e’ as in make. Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. ‘ea’ in tea, head and break.

Phonics Screening test Prepare your child for the Phonics Screening test at the end of Year 1. Children will be assessed on their ability to segment and blend real and ‘alien’ words.

Phase 6 Children will be able to read many familiar words automatically. They will be able to decode unfamiliar words quickly and quietly. They will use their well-developed segmenting and blending skills to decode more complex words. The aim in this phase is for children to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers. Introducing and teaching the past tense. Investigating and learning how to add suffixes.

How can I help? Practise blending and segmenting a wider set of words. Ensure that you are modelling the correct articulation of sounds. Play games where you support Phonics (see Letters and Sounds leaflet) including sound and listening games. Ensure your child learns the letter names and forms them correctly in line with our school policy (see Letter Formation sheet) Encourage your child to attempt to write words down as they hear them and then extend to simple sentences. Help your child to learn the Tricky Words that get sent home by sight. Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’. Use your phonics journal! Ask your child’s teacher if you want to know more.

And most importantly ENJOY READING! Remember… Phonics is not the only thing needed to become a fluent reader. Please continue to read as much as possible to and with your child. Encourage them to: Sound out Re-read to check it makes sense. Use pictures for clues. Ask questions about the book. And most importantly ENJOY READING!

Useful websites www.sparklebox.co.uk www.twinkl.co.uk www.phonicsplay.co.uk Jolly Phonics Sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei0iFs5uF6w Letters and Sounds articulation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

Questions?