Teaching Phonics 21st September 2015

In 2006 the Rose Review made clear that: “there are two dimensions to reading – ‘word recognition’ and ‘language comprehension”

So what is phonics? Phonics is the teaching of the phonemes in the English language. A “phoneme” is the smallest unit of sound represented by letters (“graphemes”). Letter name: Aa = ‘ay’ Sound it makes: /a/

Understanding of the skills of segmenting and blending Knowledge of the alphabetic code 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 (26 letters, 44 phonemes, 140 different letter combinations) + Understanding of the skills of segmenting and blending

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: /s/ /a/ /t/ /p/ /i/ /n/ /m/ /d/ /g/ /o/ /c/ /e/ /u/ /r/ /h/ /b/ / f/ /j/ /v/ /w/ /x/ /y/ /z/ /qu/ /ch/ /sh/ /th/ /th/ /ng/ /ai/ /ee/ /igh/ /oa/ /oo/ /oo/ /ar/ /or/ /ur/ /air/ /ow/ /oi/ /ear/ /air/ /ure/ /er/

Phonemes /b/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /c/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /th/ /ch/ /sh/ /zh/ /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ /ai/ /ee/ /ie/ /oe/ /ue/ /oo/ /ar/ /ur/ /au/ /er/ /ow/ /oi/ /air/ /ear/ /ure/

GRAPHEME Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

BLENDING Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

Sound out and blend these words… drep blom gris Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

Segmenting Skill used for spelling words Children listen carefully and identify sounds in words to help them spell I Spy good game for hearing initial sounds in words Other games to play are Add a sound: what do I get if I add a p to ink? Take away a sound: what do I get if I take away s from sink?

Segmenting Activity Use your ‘robot arms’ to say how many phonemes in each word. shelf dress sprint string

Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

Once children are good with single phonemes… DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ch sh zz oa ai TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh ear air ure CONSONANT BLENDS – sp cl fr tr dr str

The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way

TRICKY WORDS Words that are not phonetically decodable e.g. was, the, I Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodable once we have learned the harder phonemes e.g. out, there,

Handwriting

Tripod grip

Reading

Things to remember Correct pronunciation Correct vocabulary We all need to use the same language at home and at school. Little and often is the key. Does not have to be formal. Link it to the children’s interests.

Phonics quiz What is a phoneme? How many phonemes are there the in spoken English language? Write down at least four different ways of representing /ae/