What is Phonics? Phonics is recommended as the first strategy that children should be taught in helping them learn to read. 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. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words using the corresponding graphemes (GPCs).

What’s the problem? humpty dumpty sat on the wall dumpty ran to the hall

26 44 The Alphabetic Code How many letters in the alphabet? How many speech sounds (phonemes) make up the English language? 44

Why is phonics so important? It is very important that we teach phonics early on, clearly and systematically to enable children to learn to read and to spell. The English written language is basically a kind of a code. Teaching phonics is just teaching children to crack that code. Children learn the simple bits first and then easily progress to get the hang of the trickier bits.

So what do we do? We use the phonics scheme ‘Letters and Sounds’ which is the government recommended scheme. It was created by the Department of Education in order to develop children’s phonic knowledge and skills with the aim of making children competent readers by the age of seven. We also use the ‘Jolly Phonics’ scheme and resources to support the teaching of the sounds. We will be learning four sounds a week and on a Friday we will have a catch- up/review day.

Phonics Lessons Our Phonics lessons take place each morning for twenty minutes. We introduce a new letter sound through an action. The children are taught the letter sounds, rather than the letter names to prevent them getting muddled. (Once their letter sounds are secure, they can be introduced to the letter names later on in Phase 3). Children will also learn a song that reinforces the letter sound being taught.

Phase 2 The purpose of this phase is to teach at least 19 letters. This phase moves children on from oral blending and segmentation to blending and segmenting with letters. By the end of the phase many children should be able to read some VC and CVC words and to spell them either using magnetic letters or by writing the letters on paper or on whiteboards. During the phase they will be introduced to reading two-syllable words and simple captions. They will also learn to read some high-frequency and ‘tricky’ words.

Letter Sound Groups 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

The first group of letters contains sounds that can be put together to make many simple, three letter words. E.g. sat, pin, tin, tip, sit, pat, pit, nip, sip, sap, nap, tap… Notice how /c/ is introduced relatively early on. This is because its letter formation is the basis for several others – /d, o, g, q/. If the children know how to write /c/, it will help them write the others more accurately.

Lesson Structure Introduction Objectives and criteria for success Revisit and review Teach Practise Apply Assess learning against criteria Practise previously learned letters Practise oral blending and segmentation Teach a new letter Teach blending and/or segmentation with letters Teach one or two tricky words Practise reading and/or spelling words with the new letter Read or write a caption (with the teacher) using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new letter

Actions to support… Children will be shown the grapheme that goes with the phoneme we are learning. We also teach them an action to perform when saying the sound. We say the sound and do the action at the same time.

Songs in Jolly Phonics We will also play the children a song for the phoneme they are learning. We sing this several times with them and perform the actions alongside it. Learning these songs is a fun way to reinforce the sound they have just learnt.

Phase 3 The purpose of this phase is to teach another 25 graphemes, most of them comprising two letters (e.g. oa), so the children can represent each of about 42 phonemes by a grapheme. Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation in this phase and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions. They will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and also begin to learn to spell some of these words.

Letter Sound Groups Set 6: j, v, w, x Set 7: y, z, zz, qu Consonant digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng Vowel digraphs:  ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Digraphs and Trigraphs Another thing to notice is that in Phase 3 there are letter sounds made from two letters, called ‘digraphs’. There are also sounds made from three letters, called ‘trigraphs’. These come later because they are slightly harder to learn, but they are very important to learn. Many common words will be unavailable to the children if they don’t know the digraphs and trigraphs – such as ‘lunch’!

Lesson Structure Introduction Objectives and criteria for success Revisit and review Teach Practise Apply Assess learning against criteria Practise previously learned letters or graphemes Teach new graphemes Teach one or two tricky words Practise blending and reading words with a new GPC Practise segmenting and spelling words with a new GPC Read or write a caption or sentence using one or more tricky words and words containing the graphemes

Phase 4 Towards the end of the year we will be moving on into Phase 4 of letters and sounds. In Phase 4, no new graphemes are introduced. The main aim of this phase is to consolidate the children's knowledge and to help them learn to read and spell words which have adjacent consonants, such as: trap string milk.

Blending Blending is a process of saying the sounds in the word and then running them together to make the word. There are two types of blending: Oral Blending - This involves hearing phonemes and being able to merge them together to make a word. Children need to develop this skill before they will be able to blend written words. Blending- This involves looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents. Then merging these phonemes together to make a word. This is the basis of reading.

Blending c-a-t cat th-i-ck thick squelch s-qu-e-l-ch

Segmenting There are also two types of segmenting: Oral Segmenting - This is the act of hearing a whole word and then splitting it up into the phonemes that make it. Children need to develop this skill before they will be able to segment words to spell them. Segmenting - This involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes that make it, using knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order. This is the basis of spelling.

cat c-a-t thick th-i-ck squelch s-qu-e-l-ch Segmenting cat c-a-t thick th-i-ck squelch s-qu-e-l-ch

High Frequency Words High frequency words are quite simply those words which occur most frequently in writing, for example, "and", "the", "as" and "it". They are often words that have little meaning on their own, but they do contribute a great deal to the meaning of a sentence. Some of the high frequency words can be sounded out using basic phonic rules, e.g. "it" is an easy word to read using phonics.

Tricky Words However, there are many common words that cannot be sounded out so easily. For example, ‘the’ cannot be sounded out correctly. Tricky words are taught to children by getting them to sound-talk the word, and then find the tricky sounds. These are the parts of the word where the spelling does not correspond to the sounds they hear. Reading the word regularly and practising this will help children to remember these tricky words. Tricky words will be sent home once we start to introduce these.

Alternative Spellings Some sounds can have more than one spelling. Children are initially only taught one way to spell some sounds such as ‘ai’. Although there are alternative ways of spelling the same sound it is easier for children to learn one way of spelling a sound and then when they have mastered it, they can begin to learn the alternative ways – e.g. ‘ay’. Being able to read words with the alternatives exposes the children to a much wider vocabulary and will help them later on in their spelling.

Sound Sheets in Jolly Phonics The children will each be given a sound sheet for the sound they have been learning that day. On it there is a picture to remind them of the action for that sound which they can colour in. They have to trace the letters on the line and then try to draw the letters on their own. The sheet shows the child where the letter starts and how they should draw it. On the back of the sheet, an adult draws the letter for the children to trace over three times in different colours.

What can you do to help? It is very important that children are using pure sounds. Becoming familiar with how the sounds should be said will be one of the most important things that you can do in supporting your child. Mr Thorne does phonics. Playing games with phonics is also a really good way of engaging children. www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/schools www.ictgames.com www.letters-and-sounds.com Most importantly, sharing lots of books and encouraging children to use their phonics knowledge. Other text sources – reading labels, signs, anything that might engage your child!

Sound Books You will soon have a sound book sent home with your child in their book bag – just look for the bright pink book! Each week, the new sounds they are learning will be added. They are put in so that you can see what sounds they have learnt that week and practise with them at home. Each sheet explains the actions that have been taught to go alongside the sound. There are also some words from the picture and story so they can recognise the sound in words. I will also have put in some letter formation practise examples.

Any questions?