Teaching phonics at st james’ infant school Information Meeting for Parents Tuesday 15th January 2019

WHAT IS PHONICS? Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word and the letter or letters that represent the phonemes. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words

How do we teach it? Daily whole class session Literacy Carousel Supporting children to apply their learning during focus group work and 1-1 reading.

Saying the letter sounds correctly “sss” not “suh” “fff” not “fuh”  

Making a start with phonics Phase 1 Focus on listening skills Listening to sounds in the environment Nursery, rhymes, songs and games.   This paves the way for systematic learning of phonics and usually starts in nursery or pre-school, but will be revisited when the children enter Reception. Children are taught to listen attentively to sounds in the environment, eg going on listening walks around the school to identify the different sounds they can hear. Teachers use a wide range of nursery rhymes and songs and lots of games to encourage children to listen carefully.

Learning to “sound talk” c-a-t - cat d-o-g - dog

Starting to learn letter sounds Phase 2 Most single letter sounds Sounds made by more than one letter, eg “ll” “ss”   Children in Reception move quickly onto this phase during which they will continue practising what they have learnt in Phase 1, including “sound talking”. They will be taught the sounds for a number of letters and that some sounds can be represented by more than one letter, eg “ll” as in “bell”, “ck” as in “duck”, “ff” as in “puff” and “ss” as in “hiss”.  

Sound buttons To teach the children to break words into sounds we use “sound buttons”. Demonstrate how to write sounds buttons on board

We teach Jolly Phonics actions to go with the letter sounds.   Demonstrate some of the JP actions.

Tricky words Alongside learning the sounds made by letters children will learn to read “tricky” words. These are words which need to be learnt by sight. Tricky words for this phase are the, to, I, no, go.  

Writing in lower case Lower case letters are taught initially and it is useful if you can use these at home.  

phase three Phase 3 Sounds made by two or three letters, eg “sh”, “oa” as in boat “igh” as in high blending and segmenting a wider range of words with three sounds, eg “ship”, “feet”. Tricky words, eg he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are. They learn the letter names and how to form letters correctly

Making letters in playdough, sand, etc MAKING PHONICS FUN Games Songs Making letters in playdough, sand, etc Demonstrate some games, eg on Phonics play

Moving on into year 1

Phase 4 Focuses on blending. CVCC words, eg hand, bend, lump CCVC words, eg spin, stop, trip. More tricky words: said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what.   .

Phase 5 Alternative pronunciations for spelling patterns, eg “ow” in cow and low “ea” in bread and eat. Alternative spellings for the same sounds, eg the long “o” sound can be made by “ow”, “oa” or “o-e” Resilience to apply trial and error – what sound right? What makes sense?  

Strategies for reading:

Year 1 phonics screening It is a statutory requirement that all Year 1 children are tested. This test consists of reading 40 words - 20 real words and 20 made up words all of which can be decoded using phonics.

Moving on into year 2

the past tense Adding suffixes, eg “er”, “est” “ful” Phase 6 the past tense Adding suffixes, eg “er”, “est” “ful”

Word types Noun Verb Adjectives Adverbs

Sentence types Questions ? Statements . Commands . Exclamations !

Spelling Patterns If I can spell past, then I can spell last and fast.

For learning tricky words Mnemonics For learning tricky words People – people eat omelettes, people like eggs. Because – big elephants can always understand small elephants When – W hen W

Suffixes adding an ending to a word that changes it’s meaning ful ly ness ment less

Vowel suffixes ing ed past tense est er Y en

Prefixes Un – a reversal e.g. unplug Dis- means not e.g. disagree Mis- means wrong e.g. misunderstood

Plurals Adding s Pencils Tables Monkeys Adding es Foxes Churches bushes But Half – halves Knife - knives And the exceptions ! Sheep

Contractions Do not – don’t Cannot – can’t Should have – should’ve I have – I’ve He will – he’ll We are- we’re It is – it’s I am – I’m

Silent letters W Write Wrote Wrong wrap K knock know knee knew g gnat gnome gnaw

Common exception words

HOW YOU CAN HELP AT HOME Sing songs and nursery rhymes Play tongue twisters Play games, eg I spy Play with words, eg how many words can you think of with “oy” and make silly sentences with them. When reading, ask your child to pick out words with particular sounds in Help the children to apply decoding strategies as opposed to giving them the word straight away. Help your child to identify and say tricky words (words that cant be sounded out)