Ranvilles Infant School Phonics and Early Reading Workshop

What is Phonics? Knowledge of letters and the sounds they make. Skills of blending these sounds together to read words. Skills of segmenting the sounds in a word and choosing the correct letters needed to spell it.

How do we teach Phonics? Letters and Sounds Phases 1-6 The children will be set in their Year groups, according to the phase of Letters and Sounds they are working on. In Year R, they begin at Phase 1, then move onto phase 2, then 3 and sometimes 4. In Year R they begin to receive 5-10 minutes minutes focussed phonics teaching each day, building up to 15-20 minutes.

Phase 1 Children explore sounds and words and develop awareness of rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. They learn how to orally blend sounds and distinguish different sounds in words. Phase 1 is generally started in pre-school and continues as children begin YR. They are usually ready to move on from it by the first half term in Autumn.

Phase 2 Children are introduced to at least 19 letters and corresponding sounds. They begin to read and spell simple CVC words. They also begin to read High Frequency words. Phase 2 is generally completed in Year R.

Phase 2 Graphemes and Phonemes (Letters and sounds) Reading website

CVC words – Consonant-Vowel-Consonant These are simple words which children start with when they begin to blend sounds e.g. sat pin High Frequency Words (HFWs) These are common words that are useful for children to learn to read and spell. As children progress through the phases of Letters and Sounds they are introduced to sets of HFWs. Some words are decodable which children can blend to read e.g. it. Some are tricky words e.g. the, which are not phonically decodable and are learned by sight. List of hfws

There are 44 phonemes that the children learn throughout the Letters and Sounds Programme. As well as the sounds of the letters of the alphabet there are also … Consonant digraphs- contain 2 consonants Put together they make a new phoneme and are not heard individually e.g. ch th ll ck sh Vowel digraphs- contain 2 letters, at least one is a vowel e.g. ai ee oa ar or oi ow Trigraph – contain 3 letters e.g. ear igh dge Grid of all 44 phonemes

Phase 3 Children learn one grapheme for a further 25 phonemes. These include consonant and vowel digraphs (e.g. ch, ng, ai, oa) and trigraphs (e.g. igh, air). They read and spell HFWs. Phase 3 is generally completed in YR.

Phase 3 Graphemes and Phonemes (Letters and sounds)

Correct pronunciation of phonemes is very important in helping children read and spell correctly. We use Jolly phonics actions as a reminder to children on how to pronounce these. The pronunciation of the consonant phonemes can be grouped: 1. f l m n r s z v sh th zh (continuous) 2. c p t ch h (short, soft) b d g w qu y j (short) http://www.getreadingright.co.uk/phoneme/pronounce-the-phonemes/4 Find recording of pronunciation

Sound Buttons c a p ch a t

g b a Fun way of reinforcing concept of phonemes made up from more than one grapheme.

b oo t b oo t Fun way of reinforcing concept of phonemes made up from more than one grapheme.

Reading at Home After half term, your child will bring home a colour coded book, matched to their abilities and the phase of letters and sounds they are working on. They will also have a reading record book to sign when they have read at home. Reading little and often is best, 5 minutes a day is a good basis.

Listening to your child read It is important to read with your child from the early stages, even before they can read. Encourage them to turn the pages, point to the words and look at the pictures to discuss the story and make predictions about what they think will happen.

Listening to your child read As children learn more phonics, encourage them to look at the sounds in a word and have a go at sounding it out (use phase 2 and 3 sound mats to help) They will be learning High Frequency words which they will begin to recognise by sight in their books. They can also look at the pictures and think about what is happening in the story to help them make sense of their reading. If children read a book from memory, don’t worry as this will build up their confidence with reading. They will change their books daily, so that they have new books to read.

Reading Together Sharing favourite books together will encourage children to join in, particularly rhyming books. Encourage children to choose books and look at them independently so that reading becomes something they enjoy!