Workshop for Parents

Purpose of today’s session  To give an insight into how phonics is taught at St. Michael’s.  To give an overview of the Year 1 phonics screening check.

At St. Michael’s, we follow the Letters and Sounds programme. Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills which consists of six phases.

Key Vocab

Two main skills Phonics – decoding by blending the sounds in words to read them Language comprehension- understand what the word means within the context it appears Language development and phonics working together supports reading development.

 Phonics - main strategy supporting word recognition  Teaches children to connect letters of the alphabet to the sounds they make- blending them together from left to right to make a word  Supports children in identifying those individual sounds (phonemes) within words and segment them for spelling

 Ofsted (2010), Reading by six: Excellence in reading is characterised by: establishing phonic knowledge and skills and their application through reading, writing and comprehension of what they are reading broadening and extending the range and quality of reading enhancing the teaching of reading by its application across the wider curriculum.

 26 letters of alphabet  These letters and combinations of these letters make 44 sounds  Speech sounds- phonemes- the smallest units of sound in words  Letters or groups of letters- graphemes  Phonemes can be represented by graphemes of one, two or three letters: t sh igh

 One letter or one group of letters used to write one sound e.g. The sound ‘f’ can be written with the graphemes f (fun), ff (huff), ph (phone) The sound ‘i’ can be written with the grapheme igh (night), i (knife), y (sky) or ie (tie)

Blending  Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-a-t and synthesising or blending them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cat’ Not cuh-a-tuh

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

 On-going assessment of individual children  Opportunities provided for small group/individual work for those children who need more consolidation of phonic knowledge  Year 1 Phonics screening check- from 2012

 designed to give teachers and parents information on how the child is progressing in phonics  two sections in this 40-word check and it will assess phonics skills and knowledge learned through Reception and Year 1. Takes 5-10 minutes per child  It is a school-based check to make sure that the child receives any additional support promptly- practice time is given, not stressful for children

 It will check that the child can:  Sound out and blend graphemes in order to read simple words.graphemes  Read phonically decodable one-syllable and two-syllable words, e.g. cat, sand, windmill.decodable  Read a selection of nonsense words which are referred to as pseudo words.  Pseudo words are included in the check specifically to assess whether the child can decode a word using phonics skills and not their memory. decode

 The check is not about passing or failing but checking appropriate progress is being made. It is not a test.  If children do not reach the required standard, then the teacher will discuss plans and offer additional, tailored support to ensure that children are able to catch up.  They will then take the check again at the end of Year 2.

 v-1s v-1s  Advice on phonics at the dedicated parent's website at On this website you will find:  Top tips to help your child with their reading, from Ruth Miskin  Phonic pronunciation help  Fun activities to help embed their early learning

 Say each sound in the word from left to right.  Blend the sounds by pointing to each letter, i.e. /b/ in bat, or letter group, i.e. /igh/ in sigh, as you say the sound, then run your finger under the whole word as you say it.  Try to ensure that you enunciate the sound accurately.  Talk about the meaning if your child does not understand the word they have read.  Work at your child’s pace.  Always be positive and give lots of praise and encouragement.