An Introduction to Phonics & Reading in Reception at Templewood

Phonics – How is it taught? Letters and Sounds Phases 1 – 6 After Busy Fingers 15 minutes a day. Other activities and games touched on during the course of the day e.g. during LTP always a phonics activity out.

The ‘Letters and Sounds’ Strategy Daily sequence REVISIT AND REVIEW Recently and previously learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences, or blending and segmenting skills TEACH New grapheme-phoneme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting PRACTISE New grapheme-phoneme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting APPLY New knowledge and skills while reading/writing

Phonic Phases Phase 1: developing speaking, listening and phonological awareness – music, keeping the beat, rhyme and alliteration, sound discrimination activities. Phase 2: introducing grapheme–phoneme correspondence Phase 3: blending and segmenting CVC words eg. c a t, m u m, h o p Phase 4: reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants eg. skip, clop, mist, damp By the end of Year R, children should have reached phase 3, some may have reached phase 4

Phonic Terminology In Year R the children are introduced to some new terminology to use when talking about letter sounds: Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest functional unit of speech. The word "cat" contains three phonemes: the /c/, /a/, and /t/ sounds. The word “fish” also does: /f/, /i/, and /sh/ sounds Grapheme: A written or printed representation of a phoneme. Note : In English, a grapheme may be a single letter or a group of letters. Digraphs: Consonant digraphs: two consonants combined to represent one sound, eg. ch, sh, th Vowel digraphs: two vowels together that represent one vowel sound, eg. ai, oa, ee

How & what do the children learn? Reading: Children learn 44 sounds & the corresponding phoneme Learn to read words using sound blends – Robot arms Learn how to use phoneme frames Read lively stories – fiction and non fiction Show that they comprehend the stories by answering ‘find it’ & ‘prove it’ discussion questions m o p

A note on going too fast Developmentally the children will hear different sounds at different times. Year 1 Reading Screening – Alien words Foundation – not just about reading – comprehension, inference, deduction, writing, spelling, tools for life.

Letter Progression Phase 2: Set 1 s atp Set 2 inmd Set 3 gock Set 4 ckeur Set 5 hbf, ffl, ll Phase 3: Set 6 j vwx Set 7 ssyz, zzqu

Letter Progression Phase 3: Consonant digraphs chshthng Vowel digraphs aieeoo Vowel digraphs oa oo oi CV digraphs arorur CV digraphs ower Trigraphs ighear Trigraphs ureair

Initial sounds These sounds should all be stretched slightly: m, s, n, f, l, r, v, z, th, sh, ng, nk These sounds can’t be stretched, make sounds as short as possible: t, p, k, c, h, ch, x ‘bouncing’ them helps You will find it hard to avoid saying uh at the end of these sounds: d, g, b, j, y, w, qu Short vowels should be kept short & sharp: a, e, i, o, u The long vowel sounds are all stretchy sounds: ay, ee, igh, ow, oo, oo, ar, or, air, ir, ou, oy

Reading Books They will be bringing home the Oxford Reading Tree scheme books as well as some other schemes, which they won’t necessarily read in school. These are books to practice the skills of reading. Some will start with wordless books for making up stories. (Example) Reading isn’t a race. Children will be bringing home one book at a time and read it a few times with you. It is about mastery not speed. Comprehension is equally important. Children will read with an adult once a week at school. Therefore, it is important that your child has their reading record, reading book and book bag in school everyday. We will aim to change your child’s book twice a week. Please can you record in your child’s reading record each day your child has read with you at home. If it’s not recorded we don’t know whether the book needs changing. Please write ‘finished’ or ‘ready to change’ when they can read it well. Library books don’t need to be recorded in reading record books.

Reading Books When your child starts reading books with words. If they don’t know a particular word … ALWAYS START WITH PHONICS Can you work out the word by sounding it out? Can we try robot arms? If it is still tricky... Then: - look at the initial sound … - read the rest of the sentence … can you guess what it might be? - look at the pictures … do they give a clue?

Apart from the obvious, what can I do with a reading book? carefully look at the pictures & describe in their own words what is happening count the number of words / count the number of letters in a word look for certain words “Can you find the word ‘it’? How many are there in this book?” cover up a word in the sentence, can they work out what the missing word might be? Cover up the picture...can they still read the words? write a sentence from the book on a strip of paper. Cut up sentence & your child can put the sentence back together in the right order? stop just before the end of the book. What will happen/do they remember happens at the end? Try to predict, talk about, draw the ending before seeing what happens. Retell the story by drawing pictures to show what happened. Make your own stories based on the characters. Think of your own adventures or act them out!

How can I help my child? Read as many stories to your child as you can. Talk about stories. Vary the Genre and type of text. Try to create a regular relaxing rhythm of reading their book together. Explain the meanings of new words and use it in a sentence. Talk about the sequence of the story (what happens at the beginning, middle, end) Talk about characters & settings & make up new stories based on ones your child already knows. Show the fun that can be gained by listening to stories. WOW words. Writing their name and surname Fine motor exercises such as threading, weaving, tweezers etc

Some do’s and don’ts Please don’t buy the Oxford Reading Tree scheme books. If you want your child to enjoy reading there are loads of fantastic & exciting, books that will interest & inspire your child to read. Do go to the library, go to a bookshop & get your children to choose something they want to listen to or to read! Don’t worry about getting everything exactly right. The lesson we most want them to learn is that reading is enjoyable and relaxing.

Thank you. We will be sending a phase 2 phonics mat home. Any questions?