+ Letters & Sounds Parent Workshop Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Emma Cooper & Jane Hill

+ What is Letters & Sounds? It is a comprehensive teaching document which covers all of the phonic skills children need to learn, starting in the Early Years Foundation Stage and going through KS1 to the end of Year 2. It consists of 6 phases covering all the 44 phonemes. Phase 1 is the foundation of any phonic teaching and learning. Phase 2,3 and 4 are taught in Reception. Letters and Sounds teaches children how to use their sounds through blending in reading and segmentation for spelling. In Reception we teach each phoneme (sound) and the grapheme (letter) alongside an action from the Jolly Phonics scheme.

+ The language of Phonics Phonemes – the sound of the letter or letters e.g. a, ai, s, sh Graphemes – the written form Digraphs – when 2 letters make 1 sound e.g. ch, sh Split Digraphs – 2 letters making one sound together but they are split by another letter e.g. made, tile CVC – Consonant-vowel-consonant e.g. cat, dog, bed CVCC – e.g. past, left CCVC – e.g. step, stop

+ Silly Soup – alliterative focus Can also be used with a rhyming focus

+ Letters & Sounds - Phase 1 Phase 1 provides a firm foundation for future learning. It focuses on developing speaking and listening skills which are needed before the more focused work starts at Phase 2. Phase 1 is split into 7 aspects and each aspect covers 3 strands; tuning into sounds; listening and remembering sounds and talking about sounds. The aspects are General Sound Discrimination – environmental sounds General Sound Discrimination – instrumental sounds General Sound Discrimination – body percussion Rhythm and Rhyme Alliteration Voice Sounds Oral Blending and Segmenting

+ It is now time to build on Phase 1 and move into Phase 2!

+ What happens in Reception? Discrete Phonics teaching 25 mins daily We begin teaching Phase 2 of the Letters & Sounds programme once all the children are in and settled. This is usually after the October half term. Phase 2 begins the systematic teaching and learning of phonics. Each week we learn 4 new letters and revise and consolidate the ones we have learnt before. We teach children how to blend (put the sounds together) and segment (split them up) each and every day. We also teach the High Frequency and Tricky words as part of the process.

+ Phase 2- coverage Set 1: s a t p Set 2: i n m d Set 3: g o c k Set 4: ck e u r Set 5: h b f, ff l, ll ss

+ Daily Phonics Session Each phonics session follows the same pattern Revisit and Review Teach – the new letter Practice – using the new letter and others already taught in blending and/or segmenting Apply – from week 3 onwards – we read or write a short caption together. HFW and Tricky words are taught and consolidated within this process.

+ Blending & Segmenting

+ Letters & Sounds in the wider environment The development of our children’s Letters & Sounds knowledge does not just happen in those discrete teaching sessions. We weave phonics into our continuous provision (the activities which are available to the children). There are opportunities offered to ‘bump into phonics’ in the sand, the play dough, the shop and the home corner for example. The games we play in our discrete sessions are then left out for the children to explore in their own time.

+ Phase 3 – coverage Phase 4 consolidates and extends Phase 3 but no new GPCs are taught Phase 3 lasts for approximately 12 weeks. Set 6: j, v, w, x Set 7:y,z,zz,qu Consonant diagraphs: ch, sh, th, ng Vowel diagraphs: ai,ee,igh,oa,oo,ar,or,ur,ow,oi,ear,air,ure,er We also learn lots of tricky (non-decodable) words during Phase 3 he, she, we, be, me, was, you, they, all, are, my, her

+ Useful websites/apps

+ Those tricky sounds … We all sometimes need to check the correct pronounciation of the phonemes, this is especially true as we move into the vowel digraphs in Phase 3. Youtube has a good set of videos to help you and your child pronounce the sounds correctly. Try adding ‘Sounds of the English Phonic Code by PhonicBooks ‘ to the search bar. The Jolly Phonics songs (which accompany our taught actions are available on Youtube too! Please do monitor your child’s use of Youtube – it is best to watch these videos together.