Phonics at St. Anthony’s School for Boys November 2016

Aims To share how phonics is taught at St. Anthony’s. To develop your confidence in helping your children with phonics. To teach the basics of phonics and some useful phonic terms. To show examples of activities and resources we use to teach phonics in class. This is the term used for letter sounds rather than the alphabetical name. An initiative has been set up by the government to raise children’s phonological understanding. A good understanding of phonics enables children to blend sounds together for reading and then breaking them down for spelling.

Synthetic Phonics We use an approach called Synthetic Phonics. The boys are taught to read letters or groups of letters by saying the sounds (phonemes) they represent. They are taught that the letter __ sounds like __ when we say it. They can then start to read words by blending (synthesising) the sounds together to make a word. http://mrthorne.com/home/phonics/introduction/ Karen e.g. children are taught to break a 3 letter word down and pronounce each phoneme (sound) for each letter in turn, i.e. ‘cat’ would be broken down into C-a-t. Synthetic phonics for writing is the reverse of the sequence Children are taught to say a word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, e.g. d-o-g. the children would write a grapheme (letter) for each of the phonemes heard and then produce the written word ‘dog’.

St Anthony’s Phonics Scheme Every day the boys have a 20 minute session of phonics. The boys learn 2 sounds a week with time for revision at the end of each term. Each sound we teach is supported by a short alliterative sentence and an action. Please encourage your son to learn the action to each sound. Duncan New Letters and Sounds document is split into 6 phases.

Phonics Words Phoneme: Sounds that can be heard in words. e.g. c - a – t Digraph:A phoneme compromising of two letters. e.g. ll, ff, ch, sh

Enunciation Each phoneme should be articulated clearly and precisely. The boys are taught the pure sound. Some are long, stretchy sounds for instance ‘n’ and ‘m’ and some are short, bouncy sounds like ‘t’ or ‘p’. Do not add ‘uh’ on the end of the sounds. http://mrthorne.com/home/phonics/introduction/ Lisa

Blending t – i – n = tin b – e – d = bed Children need to be able to read the separate sounds in a word and then blend them together to say the whole word. b – e – d = bed t – i – n = tin Duncan The development of speaking and listening skills Listening games Rhyme etc Alliteration- Silly Sally slipped on a slippery snake.

Segmenting bed = b – e - d tin = t – i -n They also need to be able to hear a word and say each sound that they hear. This is very important when it comes to writing. bed = b – e - d tin = t – i -n Duncan Children will have expereinced a wealth of listening activbities, including songs, stories and rhymes. Ways to support your child in the phonics pack you’ll be receiving later.

Blending and Segmenting Games These games can be played for both blending or segmenting practise. The Robot Game What’s in the Box? Mrs Browning has a Bag Lisa We introduce the 1st 19 phonemes and their matching graphemes. Phonic time 4 times a week where we introduce and practise phonic activities-reading, writing etc

Tricky / High Frequency Words The boys learn some tricky / high frequency words each week. Tricky words cannot be blended or segmented because they are irregular for instance, ‘the’ and ‘you’. It is important that the boys are able to recognise these words. High frequency words are words which appear frequently in texts. Karen One of our support materials we use in school is called Jolly Phonics. We will share with you some of the actions to support the sounds.

How to help at home Challenge your son to find objects that begin with a certain sound. Play ‘I Spy’ with phonemes not letter names. Play blending and segmenting games. Extend rhyming strings. Make up silly alliterative sentences. Make words with sound cards. Duncan

Phonics Videos and Games Online Geraldine the Giraffe http://mrthorne.com/home/phonics/geraldine-the-giraffe/ Starfall http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/letter-a/load.htm?filter=abc Letters and Sounds Phase 2 & 3 http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-2-games.html