2. East Harling Primary School Letters and Sounds

3. What is phonics? Phonics is the back-to-basics method of reading that teaches children to recognise the different sounds represented by letters. Before children are introduced to books, they are taught individual sounds to construct words. For example, when taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, the children can build up the words "tap", "pat", "pats", "taps" and "sat". * This is also essential for writing as children will be able to segment sounds in words to support them when writing independently.

4. What is Letters and Sounds? At East Harling Primary School we follow the Letters and Sounds programme. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. Children take part in a structured twenty minute phonic session every day.

5. Glossary Phoneme – This is the smallest unit of sound in a word (you hear a phoneme) Grapheme - These are the letters that represent the phoneme. The grapheme could be 1,2 or more letters. For example: t, ai, igh (you see a grapheme) vc words – vowel consonant words, e.g. on, it, up Cvc – consonant vowel consonant words, e.g. cat, pig, net, top Blending – (for reading) – recognising the letter sounds in a written word then merging them into the correct order to pronounce word Segmenting – (for spelling) – identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word and writing down letters for the sounds to form the word Digraph - 2 letters making one sound (ai, ee, oo) Split digraph – where 2 letters make one sound, but they are not next to each other, e.g. a-e, i-e Trigraph - 3 letters making one sound (igh) Consonant cluster - is a group or sequence of consonants that appear together in a syllable without a vowel between them. Consonant digraph - two or more consonants grouped together in which the consonants produce one sound. For example: sh and ch. Vowel digraph - A vowel digraph has two vowels that make one sound.

6. Enunciation Being able to say each sound correctly is of primary importance to being able to blend sounds to read words. This has changed from when we were at school!

7. The 44 phonemes /b//d//f//g//h//j//k//l//m//n//ng/ /p//r//s//t//v//w//y//z//th/ /ch/ /sh//zh//a//e//i//o//u//ae//ee//ie//oe/ /ue//oo//ar//ur//au//er//ow//oi//air//ear//ure/

8. Progressing in phonics Phase 1 Explore and experiment with sounds and words. Distinguish between speech sounds, e.g. f, th, v Recognise words that rhyme (some). Phase 2 Give the sound when shown any phase 2 letter, securing first the starter letters s, a, t, i, p, o, n. Find any phase 2 letter, from a display, when given a sound. Be able to orally blend and segment cvc words. Be able to blend and segment in order to read and spell vc words such as: if, am, on, up and silly names such as: ip, ug and ock. Be able to read the five tricky words, the, to, I, no, go. Phase 3 Give the sound when shown all or most phase two and phase three graphemes. Find all or most phase two and phase three graphemes from a display when given the sound. Be able to blend and read cvc words consisting of phase 2 and phase 3 graphemes. Be able to segment and make a phonetically plausible attempt at spelling cvc words. Be able to read the tricky words he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all are. Be able to spell the tricky words the, to, I, no, go. Write each letter correctly when following a model. Phase 4 Give the sound when shown any phase 2 or 3 grapheme. Find any phase 2 or 3 grapheme from a display when given a sound. Be able to blend and read words containing adjacent consonants. Be able to segment and spell words containing adjacent consonants. Be able to read the tricky words some, one, said, come, do, so, were, when, have, their, like, little, what. Be able to spell the tricky words he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all are. Write each letter usually correctly.

9. Phase 5 Give the sound when shown any grapheme that has been taught. For any given sound write the common graphemes. Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the prime approach to reading and spelling unfamiliar words that are not completely decodable. Read and spell phonetically decodable two and three syllable words. Read automatically all the words in the list of 100 h/f words. Accurately spell most of the words in the 100 h/w list. Form each letter correctly.

10. Phase 6 To read longer and less familiar texts. Learn rarer grapheme/ phoneme correspondence. Be able to read the next 200 h/f words. To secure the reading and spelling of words containing different spellings for phonemes. Understand and begin to learn the conventions for adding the suffix ed for past tense and ing for present tense. To split compound words into their component parts and to use this knowledge to support spelling. To learn how to add common suffixes and prefixes to word and to understand how they change meaning. To identify syllables in words to aid spelling.

11. What are sound buttons/ phoneme fingers? Sound buttons - Words have sound buttons beneath to help children to blend to read the words. Phoneme fingers – When they hear a word they hold up fingers for each sound they hear. This will help children to include all sounds when spelling more unfamiliar words.

12. We incorporate learning to read and spell high frequency and tricky words into phonics sessions. High frequency words - A small group of words (300- 500) that account for a large percentage of the words in print. These words can be referred to as, “sight words,” since automatic recognition of these words is required for fluent reading (eg, “the, and, they, said”).... The National Literacy Strategy Framework identifies approximately 200 words which should be achieved by the end of Key Stage 1. Tricky words – very commonly used words that do not follow phonetic rules and have to be learnt by sight.