1. Phonics Meeting for Parents
Wednesday 20th September

2. Why teach phonics?
The ability to read and write well is a vital skill for all children, paving the way for an enjoyable and successful school experience.
Phonics helps children to develop good reading and spelling skills
We use a synthetic scheme called ‘Letters and Sounds’ as our teaching resource, along with ‘Jolly Phonics’ to introduce the sounds and ‘Read Write Inc’ to aid letter formation.

3. Why synthetic phonics?
Synthetic phonics is simply the ability to convert a letter or letter group into sounds that are then blended together into a word.

4. How do we teach it?
Jolly Phonics is multi-sensory. The children use a story, action and song to help them to learn the letter sounds.
We play lots of fun games during our daily phonics sessions.
The children will bring home a sound book and worksheets each week.
Main focus this term is to recognise and say each sound, and write it correctly.

5. How to say the sounds
Saying the sounds correctly with your child is extremely important
The way we say sound may well be different from when you were at school
We say the shortest form of the sounds
As well as the alphabet, the children also learn some digraphs (two letters that make one sound)
To check pronunciation, go to

6. The 44 phonemes /b/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /p/ /r/
/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/

7. Blending Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example
c-u-p
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’
They use this skill to begin reading and will bring home reading books in Term 2.

8. Segmenting ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out
The opposite of blending
Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m , s-t-or-k) and writing down letters for each sound (phoneme) to form the word him and stork

9. Segment and Blend these words…
drep
blom
gris
Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

10. Segmenting Activity
Using your ‘phoneme fingers’ can you say how many phonemes are in each word.
shelf
dress
sprint
string

11. Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes
dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes
sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes
string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

12. Letter formation
Alongside saying the sound, we will begin teaching the correct letter formation.
It is important that the children learn this as soon as possible, so as not to get into any bad habits!
Correct pencil grip is the first skill to get right.
We practise in lots of fun ways including writing in sand, making letters out of playdough.
We use Read Write Inc. phrases and visual clues to help the children with letter formation.
They will focus on writing their name correctly this term and will be bringing a name card home to practise.

13. How can I help?
Practise sounds in sound book daily (and keep it in their book bag!)
Complete letter formation worksheets
Begin to use sound mat and phrases at home when encouraging writing – perhaps start with their name
Play sound and letter games – make it fun!
Praise your child for trying out words
Read to your child every night to develop their love of words and books!

14. Phonic Games Go on a sound walk
Play ‘Simon Says’ to help with listening skills
Make up alliteration sentences
Make up rhymes
Sing an alphabet song together
Play ‘I spy’
Go on an initial sound letter hunt
Play with magnetic letters on the fridge
Encourage children to write a shopping list (using the initial letters at first)
Look for phonic games
Play pairs with words and pictures