Phonics at Sandy Hill Academy Welcome!

Aims What is phonics? How phonics is taught. To develop your confidence in helping your children with phonics for reading and writing. Terminology in Phonics. Different stages in phonic development. To show examples of activities and resources we use to teach phonics. To explain the Phonics screening test for Year 1 children. To give you an opportunity to ask questions.

+ What is phonics? Segmenting and blending sounds to read and write. Children are taught to read by breaking down words into separate sounds or ‘phonemes’. They are then taught how to blend these sounds together to read the whole word. Segmenting and blending sounds to read and write. Knowing what sounds letters make + Learning phonics will help your child to become a good reader and writer.

How Phonics is taught Every child in Nursery, Reception and KS1 learns daily phonics at their level. Phonics gradually progresses to learning spellings- rules, patterns of sounds etc.

Daily Phonics Every day the children have a 30 minute session of phonics. • Fast paced approach and children are phased appropriately. Lessons encompass a range of games, songs and rhymes We use the Letters and Sounds planning document to support the teaching of phonics alongside materials such as Jolly Phonics, giant phonics, LCP phonics. There are 6 phonics phases which the children work through at their own pace.

Phase 1 Getting ready for phonics Environmental Sounds Instrumental Sounds Body Percussion Voice Sounds Rhythm and Rhyme Alliteration Segmenting and Blending skills

Phase 2 Learning phonemes to read and write simple words Children will learn their first 19 phonemes: Set 1: s a t p Set 2: i n m d Set 3: g o c k Set 4: ck (as in duck) e u r Set 5: h b l f ff (as in puff) ll (as in hill) ss (as in hiss) They will use these phonemes to read and spell simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC) words: sat, tap, dig, duck, rug, puff, hill, hiss All these words contain 3 phonemes.

Terminology in Phonics Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that are found within a word]. Grapheme: The sound represented in writing. Diagraph: Two letters that make one sound when read. Trigraphs: Three letters that make one sound. CVC: Stands for consonant, vowel, consonant. Segmenting: Breaking up a word into its sounds. Blending: Putting the sounds together to read a word. Tricky words: Words that cannot easily be decoded. Pseudo words: A word that has been made up-an ‘alien’ word (gup)

Sounds should be articulated clearly and precisely. Saying the Sounds Sounds should be articulated clearly and precisely. http://www.teachfind.com/national-strategies/letter-and-sounds-%E2%80%93-articulation-phonemes-vowels-and-consonants

Phase 3 Children will enter phase 3 once they know the first 19 phonemes and can blend and segment to read and spell CVC words. They will learn another 26 phonemes: j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er. They will use these phonemes (and the ones from Phase 2) to read and spell words: chip, shop, thin, ring, pain, feet, night, boat, boot, look, farm, fork, burn, town, coin, dear, fair, sure

Phase 4 Children move into phase 4 when they know all the phonemes from phases 2 and 3 and can use them to read and spell simple words (blending to read and segmenting to spell). Phase 4 doesn’t introduce any new phonemes. It focuses on reading and spelling longer words with the phonemes they already know.

Phase 5 In Phase Five, children will learn more graphemes and phonemes. For example, they already know ai as in rain, but now they will be introduced to ay as in day and a-e as in make. Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. ea in tea, head and break. Phase 5 is a long unit, taught throughout Year 1

Common exception words (Tricky words) There are many words that cannot be blended or segmented because they are irregular but very common in text. the was said you some he she we no go to I a

Year 1 Phonics Screening

What is the Year 1 Phonic Screening Check? Every Year 1 child in the country will be taking a statutory phonic screening check in June The aim of the check is to ensure that all children are able to decode words for reading and writing by the end of Year Two. This ‘midpoint check’ will ensure that we have a clear understanding of what the children need to learn in Year Two.

What happens during the test? The test contains 40 words. Each child will sit one-to-one and read each word aloud to a teacher. The test will take approximately 10 minutes per child, although all children are different and will complete the check at their own pace. The list of words the children read is a combination of 20 real words and 20 pseudo words (nonsense words).

Pseudo Words The pseudo words will be shown to your child with a picture of an alien. This provides the children with a context for the pseudo word which is independent from any existing vocabulary they may have. Pseudo words are included because they will be new to all pupils; they do not favour children with a good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words.

The children will complete the check one at a time in a quiet area of the school. The class teacher will conduct all of the screening checks with the children. The children are not given a set time and may have a break between each section of the booklet.

Examples of words

Children may segment and blend words. Words that are sounded out correctly but incorrectly blended are not accepted. The child’s final attempt will be the one which is recorded. Consideration is given for regional accents. If children mispronounce sounds due to their speech development this is taken into consideration. Last years pass mark was 32/40. Children who do not meet the required standard will be retested in the Summer of Year Two.

How you can help! Phonic (sound) book for every child in Reception. Play lots of sound and listening games with your child. Read as much as possible to and with your child and record in their yellow reading record. Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’. If your child is struggling to decode a word, help them by encouraging them to say each sound in the word from left to right. Blend the sounds by pointing to each one, e.g. /c/ in cat, /p/ in pat, /ng/ in sing, /ee/ in been. Next move your finger under the whole word as you say it. Discuss the meaning of words if your child does not know what they have read.

How you can help! Children can practise their phonics by playing games online. Games like ‘Buried Treasure’ are particularly good.

Questions?