Reading & Phonics

We will try… To understand the importance of phonics. To get an idea of how phonics is taught in school. To understand the progression through phonic phases and how to support and develop children’s learning. What can I do at home?

Letters & Sounds Recommended programme of study. 6 Phase teaching programme

Why phonics? The aim is to secure essential phonics knowledge and skills so that children can progress quickly to independent reading (decoding the words) and writing (segmenting for spelling). Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to crack the code. Gives us the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.

How do we teach phonics? Phonic work is time-limited (phases 2-4) whereas work on comprehension continues throughout life (phase 6) 25 minute interactive multi-sensory phonic session at their own level 5 times week. Opportunities for independent reading and writing. Pace and progression is key.

PHONEME The smallest unit of sound in a word. There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

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/

GRAPHEME Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

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’

SEGMENTING ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out The opposite of blending Use your ‘ROBOT ARMS’

Segment and Blend Drip dr – i – p (blend)

Once children are secure with single phonemes… DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ll ss zz oa ai TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh air

Segmenting Activity Use your ‘robot arms’ to say how many phonemes in each word. shelf dress sprint string

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

TRICKY WORDS Words that are not phonically decodeable e.g. was, the, I Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodeable once we have learned the harder phonemes e.g. out, side

Phases Phase 1 (on-going) ◦ To distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. Phase 2 (6 weeks) ◦ To introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Phase 3 (12 weeks) ◦ To teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to spell simple regular words. Phase 4 (4-6 weeks) ◦ To read and spell words containing adjacent consonants. Phase 5 ◦ To teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes. Phase 6 ◦ To develop their skill and automaticity in reading and writing.

Year 1 Phonics Screening A screening check for Y1 to encourage schools to pursue a rigourous phonics programme. Aimed at identifying the children who need extra help so that we can give targeted support. Assesses decoding skills using phonics 40 items to be read (20 real words, 20 pseudo words) If children do not pass in Year 1 they have to retake the test at the end of Year 2. What does it look like?

What else can I do at home? Ask your child to find items around the house that represent particular sounds, i.e. ‘oo’ - ‘spoon’ ‘bedroom’ Play matching pairs – with key words or individual sounds/pictures. Key words on the stairs Play tricky word bingo Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read them? Notice words/letters in the environment. Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and about. Lots of activities online for children to practise their phonic knowledge.

Now you have the phonic knowledge how can we help with decoding….

Praise For a child to progress as a reader they must feel confident and enjoy their reading. If a child makes a mistake, we aim to use positive terms e.g. ‘Yes, you’re right, that word does start with a ‘t’, but have a look at the sounds after it.’

Time Try not to jump in too early. Wait until the end of a phrase or sentence to see if the child realises they have made an error before drawing attention to it. The ability to ‘self correct’ is praised a lot in school.

You can tell a child difficult words Encourage the child by telling them it is a ‘tricky word’. Think about strategies they could use: Have they seen it before? Do the pictures help? Can some of the sounds give us a clue? If not, tell them the word, and encourage them to try to remember it.

Strategies 1.Phonics – sound it out 2.Use a picture as a clue 3.Use picture clues as well as initial letter in the word 4.Predict word from the context it is in Remind children of these different strategies

Mistakes are good Imagine a child is reading this page: ‘The boy eats the peach.’

Which strategies are they using? “The boy eats the apple.” -Grammatical and contextual sense -The peach could look like an apple in the picture -Encourage the child to pay more attention to the actual letters and sounds of unknown words.

“The boy eats the peanut.” -Grammatical and contextual sense -the child has paid some attention to the sounds. -Encourage the child to sound out all the sounds and use the picture for clues.

“The boy eats the beach.” -The child has focused on the sounds quite accurately, confusing /p/ & /b/ (a common & minor error) -Encourage the child to check what they read makes sense, and to use the picture for clues.

“The boy eat the peach.” -Accurate reading of most sounds. -Was this just careless? Or does the child frequently use the wrong person with verbs /eat/ vs /eats/

Spot their reading behaviours… Do they: Read from left to right and match each spoken word to a written one Recognise errors Re-read to correct and re-read to check Make meaningful but not always accurate guesses Read with expression Use punctuation e.g. pause for full stops, voices for speech marks and exclamation marks. Follow print with their eyes Search for information in the print Read fluently Use letter clusters to attempt new words

Decoding + Comprehension We encourage children to re-read for sense… What else can we do?

The BEST readers Recount accurately Predict events and characters Infer Relate to other texts, and own experiences

Reading becomes wonderful when we understand Comprehension requires prior knowledge. Has the child understood the main idea? Has the child experienced this situation/object? Can you help to bridge the gaps if not?

Discussion Ideas you can discuss before opening the book: “What do you think this book might be about?” “Why do you think that?” “Is there a blurb on the back? Does it tell us anything else?”

Ideas for discussion as the child reads: “What do you think will happen next?” Ideas for discussion at the end of the book: “What was your favourite part?” “Why do you think this character behaved in that way?” “What would you have done if it had happened to you?”

Try to vary questions as much as possible

Simple retrieval Questions Can you show me where the word the word ‘satellite’ is? What was the rabbit’s name? How many words can you find that rhyme with ‘me’?

Complex Questions Do you think the fox was clever or not? Did the boy do the right thing keeping the money?

Compare to other texts Is this story similar to other stories we know? Why and how? What features do non-fiction books have? (contents page, glossary, index page, labels, information) What are your favourite types of books?

Most importantly We want to encourage a LOVE of reading. We want our children to feel happy and safe to take risks around books. Thank you for helping us to make this happen

Useful websites Please ask your child's class teacher or TA for the Schools login to the Phonics Play website.

Useful websites

Useful websites

Enjoying reading * It’s all about reading * * Book Tips *