Supporting reading and writing Letters and Sounds Supporting reading and writing

Introduction As parents and carers, you are your child’s first teacher. You have a powerful influence on your child’s early learning.

Phonics definitions Phoneme (sound) - Phonemes are the smallest unit of speech-sounds which make up a word, e.g. fish has 3 phonemes /f/, /i/, /sh/ Grapheme (letter/s) - a letter or a group of letters representing one sound, e.g. t, ch, igh Segment - to split up a word into its individual phonemes in order to spell it, e.g. the word 'cat' has three phonemes: /c/, /a/, /t/ Blend - to draw individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g. s-n-a-p, blended together, reads snap Digraph - two letters making one sound, e.g. sh, ee, oi Trigraph - three letters making one sound, e.g. igh, air, ear

Letters and sounds teaching Children begin to formally learn the sounds in the English language. Phonics sessions are fun sessions involving speaking, listening, reading and games.

Not all children will learn at the same rate! Your child will always work at a stage which is appropriate to their level of learning. They are assessed frequently and groups are arranged accordingly.

Sound talk The separate sounds (phonemes) are spoken aloud, in order, all through the word, and are then merged together into the whole word. The merging is called blending, and is a vital skill for reading. Eg: c-a-t = cat

Sound talk Children will also learn to do this the other way round. Eg: cat = c-a-t The whole word is spoken aloud and then broken up into its sounds (phonemes) in order, through the word. This is called segmenting, and is a vital skill for spelling.

Saying the sounds Your child will be taught how to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) correctly to make blending easier. We use actions to help to remember the phonemes. Alongside the sounds your child will also learn all the letter names in the alphabet and how to form them correctly.

Tricky words Your child will also learn several tricky words; these are words that cannot be sounded out and need to be recognised by sight. For example - the, to, go,

Sequence of teaching 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 Tricky words - I, go, no, to, the, into

What’s next… The next stage teaches children to learn the graphemes made up of more than one letter, eg: ‘oa’ as in boat and ‘igh’ as in night. Read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them. Read and write words in phrases and sentences.

Sequence of teaching Set 6 j, v, w, x Set 7 y, z, zz, qu Constant digraphs ch, sh, th, ng Vowel digraphs and trigraphs ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er Tricky words - he, she, we, be, me, was, you, they, all, are, my, her

These sounds and words are hard to remember and need plenty of practice.