Phonics Workshop for Supporting Parents with Early Reading. Supporting your child with phonics and reading Miss Marshall Mrs Mackenzie 8th November 2017

Purpose: To understand the importance of phonics. To get an idea of how phonics is taught in school. To understand the progression through phonic phases and how to support and develop children’s learning. What you can do at home to support your child. To support your child with passing the phonics screening test.

Why Phonics? The aim is to secure essential phonics knowledge and skills so that children can progress quickly to independent reading and writing. Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to crack the code. Gives us the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.

High quality phonics work… Interactive multi-sensory phonic session at their own level. A session led by a member of staff of shared reading and/or shared writing. Opportunities for independent reading and writing. Pace and progression is key.

Technical vocabulary A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. E.g. t ai igh A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter

Technical vocabulary A digraph is two letters, which make one sound. A consonant digraph contains two consonants sh th ck ll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel ai ee ar oy A split digraph is a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make) A trigraph is three letters, which make one sound. E.g. igh air

Technical vocabulary Oral Blending – hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging them together to make a spoken word (no text is used) for example, when a teacher calls out ‘b-u-s’, the children say bus. Blending – recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p, and 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 (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound to form the word ‘him’.

Phase 1 - ongoing To develop language and increase vocabulary through speaking and listening activities. To develop phonological awareness. To distinguish between sounds. To speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control. To become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. Use sound talk to segment words into phonemes. Example activities - listening walks, Silly Soup, rhyming chants/songs,

Phase 2 – Up to 6 weeks To introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences Children know that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes. They have knowledge of a small selection of common consonants and vowels – only 19! They blend them together in reading simple CVC words and segment them to support spelling. – use of magnetic letters!

Phase 2 Letter Progression (one set a week) 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 s

Correct Articulation of phonemes is essential! Pronunciation - not ‘uh’ on the end – use soft voice! Video – Articulation of Sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW _v-1s

This is one reason why the English Language is tricky! Articulation Long oo spoon moon balloon smoothie Soft Sound think thin thick thumb Short oo cook book look hook Spoken Sound the that there this This is one reason why the English Language is tricky! Children won’t grasp this overnight or by osmosis…they need to be immersed in an awareness of language throughout the day.

Tricky Words Words that can’t be sounded out. E.g. the, said, me, my, to, go, was

Phase 3 – Up to 12 weeks To teach children one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to read and spell simple regular words. Naming and sounding letters of the alphabet. Recognise letter shapes and say a sound for each Hear and say sounds in the order in which they occur, and read simple words by sounding out and blending. Recognise common digraphs and read some high frequency words.

Phase 4 – (4-6 weeks) To teach children to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words. Teaching should focus on the skills of blending and segmenting words containing adjacent consonants. They should not be taught in word families such as spot, spit, spin as the children will treat ‘sp’ as one unit.

Phase 4 Children now have the ability to blend and segment therefore they are moving beyond simple cvc words to cvcc, ccvc, ccvcc and cccvc. b l a ck s t r o ng c c v c c c c v c f e l t b l a n k c v c c c c v c c

Phase 5 To teach children to recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught. Teaching the long vowel phonemes Read and spell phonetically decodable 2/3 syllable words e.g. bleating, frogspawn, shopkeeper. Choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes when spelling words. Recognise an increasing number of high frequency words automatically. Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts ai a-e ay Seeing themselves as writers!

Year 1 Phonics Screening A screening check for year one to encourage schools to pursue a rigourous phonics programme. Aimed at identifying the children who need extra help are given the support. Assesses decoding skills using phonics 40 items to be read (20 real words, 20 pseudo words) If children do not pass in Year 1 they have to retake the test at the end of Year 2. What does it look like?

Year 1 Phonics Test

Tracking and Progress Children are assessed at the end of each term to ensure understanding and good progression. Children are assessed against a progress tracking grid. Children move teaching groups to accommodate their need and ability. End of phase progress checks/mock phonics test. Year 1 Phonics screening check.

How can I help? - Reading Books Your child will have the opportunity to bring home a reading book each day. Talk about the book, the character, what is happening in the story, predict what may happen next. Encourage a love of reading – not a chore!

What else can I do at home? Ask your child to find items around the house that represent particular sounds, i.e. ‘oo’ - ‘spoon’ ‘bedroom’ Play matching pairs – with key words or individual sounds/pictures. Key words on the stairs Play tricky word bingo Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read them? Notice words/letters in the environment. Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and about. Lots of activities online for children to practice their phonic knowledge.

Phonics games websites http://www.letters-and-sounds.com http://www.ictgames.com www.phonicsplay.co.uk