How we teach phonics at St George’s CofE Parent meeting What have you seen in schools with regard to phonics?

What is phonics and how can I help my child at home?

AIMS: To share how phonics is taught AIMS: To share how phonics is taught. To develop parents’ confidence in helping their children with phonics and reading To teach the basics of phonics and some useful phonics terms To outline the different stages in phonic development To show examples of activities and resources we use to teach phonics To give parents an opportunity to ask questions

The statistics   A fifth of children in the early years aren’t reaching expected levels in communication and language... A child’s vocabulary is the BEST predictor of future academic success

Why do we teach phonics? It is an encoding/decoding strategy designed to teach reading and spelling By teaching the relationship of sound to the shape of the letters, children can begin to read and write straight away.

What is phonics? Phonics involves connecting the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, ck or ch spellings) and teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together to be able to read (pronounce) words. Of course, this also means phonics enables chn to apply their sounds to ‘build’ words when they come to write. For example, when taught the sounds for the letters t, p, a and s, they can build up the words "tap", "pat", "pats", "taps" and "sat“ Systematic - explain

Key Terminology Blending Split digraph Trigraph CVC, CCVCC etc. Grapheme Phoneme Segmenting

Daily Phonics Every day the children have 20 minute sessions of phonics. Fast paced approach Lessons encompass a range of games, songs and rhymes We use the Letters and Sounds planning document to support the teaching of phonics and Jolly Phonics. There are 6 phonics phases which the children work through at their own pace

English Phonemes 26 Letters: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 44 phonemes: /b/ /k/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ / v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /sh/ /ch/ /th/ /th/ /ng/ /zh/ /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ /ai/ /ee/ /igh/ /oa/ /oo/ /oo/ /ow/ /oi/ /ar/ /or/ /ur/ /air/ /ear/ /ure/ /er/ The phonemes can be put together in 144 combinations... Some of which are illustrated here: Cat, peg, pig, log, put, pain, day, gate, station burn, first, term, heard, work, haul, law, call, tried, light, my, slaughter

Segmentation and blending Segmentation is the skill of hearing the separate sounds (phonemes) Blending is the skill of putting the sounds back together In learning to read and write, children need to recognise the way the sounds are written in order to blend and segment

Schemes in school...

In nursery children are introduced to Phase 1 of the letters and sounds programme. Phase 1 supports the development of speaking and listening and awareness of sounds and encourages children to be able to practise oral segmenting and blending of familiar words. 7 Aspects General sound discrimination - environmental General sound discrimination - instrumental sounds General sound discrimination - body percussion Rhythm and rhyme Alliteration Voice sounds Oral blending and segmenting Aspect 1 - General sound discrimination - environmental The aim of this aspect is to raise children's awareness of the sounds around them and to develop their listening skills. Activities suggested in the guidance include going on a listening walk, drumming on different items outside and comparing the sounds, playing a sounds lotto game and making shakers. Aspect 2 - General sound discrimination - instrumental sounds This aspect aims to develop children's awareness of sounds made by various instruments and noise makers. Activities include comparing and matching sound makers, playing instruments alongside a story and making loud and quiet sounds. Aspect 3 - General sound discrimination - body percussion The aim of this aspect is to develop children's awareness of sounds and rhythms. Activities include singing songs and action rhymes, listening to music and developing a sounds vocabulary. Aspect 4 - Rhythm and rhyme This aspect aims to develop children's appreciation and experiences of rhythm and rhyme in speech. Activities include rhyming stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the syllables in words and odd one out. Aspect 5 - Alliteration The focus is on initial sounds of words, with activities including I-Spy type games and matching objects which begin with the same sound. Aspect 6 - Voice sounds The aim is to distinguish between different vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and segmenting. Activities include Metal Mike, where children feed pictures of objects into a toy robot's mouth and the teacher sounds out the name of the object in a robot voice - /c/-/u/-/p/ cup, with the children joining in. Aspect 7 - Oral blending and segmenting

Phase 2 The, to, I, no, go, into 19 phonemes: 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 VC CVC continue oral blending and segmenting 2 syllable words The, to, I, no, go, into

Phase 3 set 6: j v w x CVC complex set 7: y z/zz qu letter names (i) ch sh th ng (ii) ai ee igh oa oo (iii) ar or ur oi ear air ure er ow CVC complex letter names 2 syllable words Read: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are Spell: the, to, I, no, go, into

Phase 4 By the end of phase 4 children should: Give the sound when shown any phase 2 and 3 grapheme Find any phase 2 and 3 grapheme, from a display, when given the sound Be able to blend and read words containing adjacent consonants Be able to segment and spell words containing adjacent consonants Be able to read the tricky words some, one, said, come, do, so, were, when, have, there, out, like, little, what Be able to spell the tricky words he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are Write each letter, usually correctly

Phase 5 Phase 5 should run throughout Year 1 The purpose of the phase is to broaden children’s knowledge of graphemes and phonemes for use in reading and spelling Children will become quicker at recognising graphemes of more than one letter Children will choose the appropriate grapheme to represent a phoneme when spelling

How can I help at home? Oral blending: robot arms Children need to practise hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging them together to make a word. Listening to initial sounds For example, you say ‘b-u-s’, and your child says ‘bus’. A range of online games Reading every night

Tricky words There are many words that cannot be blended or segmented because they are irregular. the was said you