Year 1 Phonics Screening Check Parent Workshop

Parent Workshop To familiarise you with some of the terminology used in our phonics sessions. To talk to you about how the phonics check will be administered and what it looks like. To provide you with some useful websites.

+ Phonics at a glance! skills of segmentation and blending knowledge of the alphabetic code It is the vital initial step in teaching children to read but it is far from the whole picture. + We would still encourage you to use a variety of strategies to support your child’s reading eg picture cues/reading on/ re-reading. Phonics is just one strategy. In Year 1 we ensure that children are exposed to a variety of rich literature and quality texts eg Beegu not just phonetically decodable books. Children have a free choice book that is sent home. Shared reading Whole class reading Reading aloud

What does phonics consist of? Identifying sounds in spoken words Recognising the common spellings of each phoneme. Blending phonemes into words for reading. Segmenting words into phonemes for spelling. We continue to use the Letters and Sounds – Currently teaching Phase 5 in Year 1 but we revisit other phases.

Definitions A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A grapheme Letter(s) representing a phoneme. t ai igh

A phoneme can be represented in more than one way cat, kennel, chick The same grapheme may represent more than one phoneme me, met.

Blending: Recognising the letter-sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p. Merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’.

Segmenting: Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (eg h-i-m). and writing down or manipulating the letters for each sound to form the word ‘him’.

Digraph: Two letters, which make one sound. A consonant digraph contains 2 consonants: sh ck th ll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel: ai ee ar oy Trigraph: Three letters, which make one sound - igh (high) ear (hear) air (hair)

Split digraph: A digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent – e.g. Make e-e i-e o-e u-e

What’s the screening check all about? Every Year 1 child in the country will be taking the phonics screening check in June. The aim of the check is to ensure that all children are able to read by the end of Year 2. It takes place mid June in a quiet space, 1-1 with their class teacher, we want to get the best out of your child and if we feel that they need a little rest/break we will provide them with one. We go with what the child needs and the children enjoy the idea of coming to complete a special challenge. Parents will find out in their child’s end of year report if they have met/not met the threshold.

Example of words that have been in previous checks Alien/nonsense words Real words The alien words become more challenging e.g. phope It is not about the children identifying whether the word is real or alien. The emphasis is on segmenting and blending.

Suggestion of games/activities? Little and often is best! Words&Pictures-BBC Schools 4-11 years Phonics Play-Begin at Phase 3 and work your way up Parents-Oxford Owl Phonics Check Support By the end of Year 1 children are expected to be confident in Phase 5. However Phase 3 and 4 is a great revision and consolidation tool. It is free to play online, but certain games you have to subscribe to on phonics play. Obb and Bob is a great game to play at home.

Any Questions??? Any additional questions please jot them down and we will get back to you asap