An introduction to Letters and Sounds 2009

AIMS To introduce teachers to Letters and Sounds

Letters and Sounds 1.The Rose Review and the SVofR 2.Overview of Letters and Sounds 3.Tracking, assessing and planning

Impact so far… Significant improvements to the quality of teaching of early literacy Learning environments enhanced to support learning Majority of children working within Phase Three at end of YR Children making better progress in SLRW Boys being more involved as a result of more real and purposeful activities Earlier identification of difficulties due to sharper assessment

What made the difference? Auditing existing provision and identifying areas to develop Regular support and monitoring by SMT, HT Regular scrutiny of data, FSP, Phonic Phases, and pupils progress checks Good learning environment; a broad and balanced programme

Rose Review The 3 S’s 1.Speaking and listening 2.Systematic phonic teaching 3.Simple view of reading

Simple View of Reading Language comprehension processes Good word recognition; good comprehension. Support needed:  Work on inference:  Drama;  Opportunities to read a wide range of texts;  Reading Comprehension fliers  More AF3; AF4; AF5; AF6 and AF7 activities. Poor word recognition; good comprehension. Support needed:  Letter/sound correspondence  Blending phonemes in order  Segmenting words into component parts  Show that segmenting and blending are reversible Word recognition skills Poor word recognition; poor comprehension. Support needed:  Needs phonics and language immersion:  Letters and sounds: See also “Pace and Progression” core paper  Nursery rhymes; traditional stories  Speaking and Listening Word recognition skills Good word recognition; poor comprehension Support needed:  Needs reading retrieval / comprehension skills:  Reading Comprehension fliers  AF2 type comprehension activities Language comprehension processes GOODGOOD G O O DP O O R POORPOOR

Activity time Take time to talk about your pupils in terms of their reading skills. Plot them onto the SV of R What are the next steps?

What’s in the pack? Notes of guidance for practitioners and teachers Six - phase teaching programme A DVD illustrating effective practice for the phases A Poster showing the principles of high quality phonic work

Phases / Year groups correlation Phases Year group Pre School YR Y1Y2 How does it differ from PiPs and PwS? Letters and Sounds replaces PiPs and PwS. However Letters and Sounds builds on the approaches, games and activities from PiPs and PwS and reflects the recommendations of the Rose Review. Steps 1 – 7 in PiPs / PwS have been replaced by the Six Phonic Phases. The Phonic Phases are linked to the ELGs and the PF The introduction of GPCs begins in Phase Two at the beginning of YR.

Overview of the Six Phases Phase One 7 Aspects : 3 strands in each Tuning into sounds Listening and remembering sounds Talking about sounds

EIBRAVO 1 Environmental 2 Instrumental 3 Body percussion 4 Rhythm and rhyme 5 Alliteration 6 Voice sounds 7 Oral bending and segmenting

Phase Two Key Features The start of systematic phonic work 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences are introduced Decoding for reading and encoding for spelling are taught as reversible processes As soon as children have a small number of grapheme/phoneme correspondence blending and segmenting can start (s/a/t/p/I/n/) ‘Tricky’ words 4 part lesson Typical Duration - up to 6 weeks

Blending and segmenting is taught on a daily basis as soon as children have learnt a small number of grapheme/phoneme correspondence i.e. s/a/t/p/i/n ‘Tricky’ words 4 part lesson Typical Duration - up to 6 weeks

The 4 part lesson Turn to page 49 Revisit and review Teach Practise Apply

Phase Three Key Features Introduces another 25 graphemes Most comprising two letters One representation of each 43 phonemes Reading and spelling two syllable words and captions Typical duration: up to 12 weeks DVD clips alphabet song / articulation

Phase Four Key Features Consolidates knowledge of GPC’s Introduces adjacent consonants No new Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence Typical duration up to 6 weeks NB Children usually complete this Phase easily. Many children may be capable of learning to read and spell words with adjacent consonants much earlier – in this case they should not be held back from doing so

Phase Five Key Features Introduces Additional graphemes Introduces alternative pronunciations for reading Introduces alternative graphemes for spelling Developing automatically Throughout year one DVD clips Phoneme Spotter / Split diagraph

Phase Six Key Features Increasing fluency and accuracy throughout Year two (although teaching of spelling continues well into KS2) Spelling : investigations and learning how to add suffixes: s, es, ing, ed, ful, er, est, ly, y, en

Reading Read longer & less familiar texts independently and with fluency Learn some of the rarer GPCs Read 300 HF words pg 195 Confident decoding allows for the development of comprehension strategies

Spelling 1.Teaching spelling 2.Learning and practising spelling 3.Application of spelling in writing 4.Knowledge of spelling system

Investigations

Adding the suffix “ing” hophope cleantake dolevel saydream skiptravel shutthink runpanic

Adding the suffix “ing” hoppinghoping cleaningtaking doinglevelling sayingdreaming skippingtravelling shuttingthinking runningpanicking

The aim of a spelling investigation is to generate rules, whilst acknowledging complexity. What happens to words ending in consonant +y (fairies, ponies) Why do some words end in es? What happens to words ending in vowel +y (toys, keys) What happens to words when I add – ing?

About investigations What are the benefits of using an investigative approach? What are the disadvantages of using an investigative approach? What additional care needs to be taken in setting an investigation as an independent group activity?

Phase 6 Planning The Senior Director Communication, Language and Literacy Development, National Strategies The four part lesson is applicable for the discrete phonics session where children are learning phoneme-grapheme correspondences in a systematic way. By Phase 6 children will have mastered all these correspondences and are moving into a phase where they are mainly developing composition and comprehension. It is therefore not appropriate to be following the four part lesson in the same way that is recommended for the earlier phases.

Children gaining independence

Fidelity “Whichever programme they choose, settings and schools should bear in mind the importance of following the sequence of the phonic content in the programme ………mixing parts of different sequences from more than one programme can slow their progress” Notes of guidance for Practitioners and Teachers p.4