Phonics at Chawton CE Primary School

What is phonics? Words are made up from small units of sound called phonemes. Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the phonemes that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words.

In phonics lessons children are taught three main things: GPCs: This stands for grapheme phoneme correspondences. This simply means that they are taught all the phonemes in the English language and ways of writing them down.

Blending: Children are taught to be able to blend. This is when children say the sounds that make up a word and are able to merge the sounds together until they can hear what the word is. This skill is vital in learning to read.

Segmenting: Children are also taught to segment. This is the opposite of blending. Children are able to say a word and then break it up into the phonemes that make it up. This skill is vital in being able to spell words.

At Chawton we follow Letters and Sounds. Letters and Sounds is a six-phase programme designed to help teach children to read and spell with phonics. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven.

Phase 1 Phase 1 usually begins in nursery or play group and will continue in Reception. The aim of this phase is to foster children’s speaking and listening skills as preparation for learning to read with phonics.

Phase 2 - Reception Phase Two is when systematic, high quality phonic work begins. In this phase children will practise what they have learned in phase 1, including ‘sound talking’. They will also be taught the phonemes (sounds) for a number of letters (graphemes), which phoneme is represented by which grapheme and that a phoneme can be represented by more than one letter, e.g. ll as in b-e-ll.

Phase 3 - Reception The purpose of this phase is to: teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly read more tricky words (words that can not be phonetically decoded e.g. ‘some’) and begin to spell some of them read and write words in phrases and sentences.

Phase 4 – Year 1 No new phonemes (sounds) are taught at this stage. The children will continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes. The focus of this phase is blending sounds together to read words.

Phase 5 – Year 1 In phase 5 children will: Be taught further graphemes for reading. Be taught alternative pronunciations for graphemes. Be taught alternative spellings for phonemes. Recognise graphemes in reading words. Practise reading and spelling of high-frequency (common) words. Practise reading and spelling two-syllable and three- syllable words. Practise reading and writing sentences.

Phase 6 – Year 2 In phase 6 children will: Be introduced to and taught the past tense. Investigate and learn how to add suffixes. Be taught how to spell long words. Be taught how to find and learn the difficult bits in words. Learn and practise spellings.

At Chawton we use a multi-sensory approach to phonics. In Year R and Year 1 children take part in a fast- paced phonic session daily. The children complete visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities which are engaging and appeal to different learning styles. Whole class teaching so all have access to age- appropriate phonics

Assessment Children are assessed regularly: At the end of each phase to check they know all the phonemes for that phase and can apply them. Each half term to see if they are on track to achieve the age appropriate Phase.

Interventions If a child is struggling with learning phonics they may take part in interventions. These are focused sessions which take place 3 – 5 times a week with a Learning Support Assistant. The sessions are fast, fun and tailored to the needs of the individual child.

Ways you can help at home.

Practising the different phonemes with your children Letters and sounds articulation of phonemes Jolly phonics phonemes

Ways to help at home Read daily with the children, using phonics to sound out words they are unfamiliar with. Practise spelling words using phonics: Say the word - ‘coat’ Segment the words into its separate phonemes - ‘c-oa-t’ Write the grapheme (letter/letters) to go with each phoneme (sound)

Ways to help at home Practise reading and spelling high frequency words (common exception words). These are words that occur most frequently in written material for example, "and", "the", "as" and "it". Learning 100 high frequency words gives a beginner reader access to 50% of virtually any text, whether a children's book or a newspaper report. When you couple immediate recognition of the high frequency sight words with a good knowledge of basic phonics, that's when a child's reading can really take off.

Useful websites Phonics Play - Lots of brilliant phonics games for children to play on the computer. Oxford Owl - Includes top tips for supporting your child’s reading, games and activities and e-books to read together. ICT Games – a range of phonics and spelling games.

Finally You can find all this information on the school website, lists of high frequency words to practise at home and links to useful websites.