1. Phonics Training for Parents
October 2017

2. What is phonics? Letter sounds – not letter names
Government initiative
Good phonics = good reading, writing and spelling.
This is the term used for letter sounds rather than the alphabetical name.
An initiative has been set up by the government to raise children’s phonological understanding.
A good understanding of phonics enables children to blend sounds together for reading and then breaking them down for spelling.

3. We use an approach called Synthetic Phonics.
Phonics for reading
Children are taught to break down a word and say each phoneme (sound).
Phonics for writing
Children are taught to reverse this process, saying the word and segment the sounds
Karen
e.g. children are taught to break a 3 letter word down and pronounce each phoneme (sound) for each letter in turn, i.e. ‘cat’ would be broken down into
C-a-t.
Synthetic phonics for writing is the reverse of the sequence
Children are taught to say a word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, e.g. d-o-g. the children would write a grapheme (letter) for each of the phonemes heard and then produce the written word ‘dog’.

4. The Phonic Alphabet The English language has 44 phonemes
They should be taught to write each letter, forming it accurately.
Children are taught to produce the sounds as shortly as possible, e.g no ‘uh’ on the end of ‘d’ and ‘g’.
Duncan
British spoken English is generally reckoned to use 44 sounds or ‘phonemes’. Technically a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference to a meaning of a word. 20 of these are vowel sounds and 24 are consonant sounds.

5. Enunciation Teaching phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation
Phonemes should be articulated clearly and precisely.
Demonstration – what skills do you need to write the word cat ?
Lisa

6. Jolly Phonics
Each sound is supported by a story, a song and an action.
Karen
One of our support materials we use in school is called Jolly Phonics.
We will share with you some of the actions to support the sounds.

7. Letters and Sounds 6 phases Phase 1-listening to sounds
Phase 2 and beyond- introducing the phonemes.
Duncan
New Letters and Sounds document is split into 6 phases.

8. Phase 1:Good listening skills
Speaking and listening skills (games)
Rhyme – Willoughby Wallaby Woo!
Alliteration – Fabulous Fred or Zippy Zoe!
Duncan
The development of speaking and listening skills
Listening games
Rhyme etc
Alliteration- Silly Sally slipped on a slippery snake.

9. Other teaching techniques
Alphablocks – use the cbeebies website, or BBCiplayer

10. Phase 1 outcomes:
They may be able to distinguish between speech sounds.
Many - blend and segment orally
Some - recognise words that rhyme and be able to provide a string of rhyming words e.g cat, bat, sat
Duncan
Children will have expereinced a wealth of listening activbities, including songs, stories and rhymes.
Ways to support your child in the phonics pack you’ll be receiving later.

11. Letters and Sounds: Phase 2
19 phonemes and graphemes
Blend and segment
Tricky words
Lisa
We introduce the 1st 19 phonemes and their matching graphemes.
Phonic time 4 times a week where we introduce and practise phonic activities-reading, writing etc

12. Letters and Sounds: Phase 3
Next 25 graphemes
Middle vowel phonemes e.g rain will be segmented into r-ai-n .
Duncan
Introduce another 25 graphemes
Move onto harder middle vowel phonemes for e.g. ‘light’ the children are taught ‘I’ sound is represented by the letters ‘igh’ in the middle of words.
They are then taught alternative ‘I’ spellings in phase 5, e.g. ‘ie’ (tie) and ‘i-e’ (like).

13. Expectations
Phase 1: majority of children will be confident and achieved this level by the end of Nursery.
Most should leave Reception having achieved Phase 3
Reading and writing independently
Confident readers and writers
Karen

14. Reading
Your child will read at least once a week with an adult at school
You should read each book at least 3 times (Once for decoding; twice for fluency and the third time for comprehension).
Any reading that you do at home should be logged in the reading diary.
In the summer term the children may be given two books to take home, depending on their reading ability.
Karen

15. Words
We have a set of the phase 2 and 3 tricky words for you to take home.
Practise with your child regularly as this will aide their reading and writing skills. Try to make this as fun as possible!
Record this in the reading diary.
We incorporate these words into our Phonics sessions.
Karen

16. How to help at home
Use the pack we provide with you today- stick the sound mats up on the fridge!
Practise isolated sounds at home – possibly display them on the fridge?
Challenge the children to find objects that begin with a certain sound.
Play ‘I Spy’ with phonemes not letter names.
Practise letter formation.
Play rhyming bingo, lotto and extend rhyming strings.
Play games with word cards.
Make sentences with word cards.
Duncan

17. MANY THANKS TO YOU ALL!
Any questions?