Thurnham CE Infant School Phonics Teaching at Thurnham CE Infant School 2 mns

Letters and Sounds This is the programme that we follow at Thurnham to ensure that we have a well structured plan that ensures progression through the school. This is a national strategy. Children who find difficulties with their phonics can continue at the stage they are regardless of their academic year. Children in Year R also use Jolly Phonics Letters and Sounds is the strategy / programme that we follow to ensure that we have a well structured plan and progression to the teaching of phonics at Thurnham.

Early Learning Goals Early Learning Goal Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

(as in writing – graphite) Some definitions A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word ( as in phone – you hear it) A grapheme is a letter or group of letters representing a single phoneme: t ch igh (as in writing – graphite) And phonemes can be consonant phonemes and vowel phonemes as in ‘t’ & ‘sh’ are consonant phonemes and ‘e’ & ‘oy’ are vowel phonemes. So when we talk about consonants and vowels we are talking about the phonemes not the graphemes! Ch – digraph Igh – trigraph Eigh – tetragraph These are explained later!

Digraphs Two letters that represent one sound. A digraph contains two letters: ck sh th ai ee oi o A trigraph contains three letters: igh ear Y can be a vowel or a consonant Split digraph – (please DO NOT call it magic e!) two letters, split, making one sound, e.g. a-e as in make or i-e in site One explanation for this oddity is that when printing began the printers were paid by the letter so they abandoned æ,œ etc. and stuck the e after the consonant to boost t

Segmenting Breaking down the word, for example, cat – c a t Remember to use the purest sounds. This is the analysing bit – breaking down the word into single phonemes. Later on children learn how to segment into syllables. Get some objects out of a bag – segment them together

Blending Once the word has been segmented it needs to be put back together, this is called blending. C a t - cat These will be referred to as we go through the presentation Will give some examples of this as we go

It iz tiem too gow hoam sed v kator pilla

Phase 1 Nursery setting Seven Aspects: Three Strands in each Introduces oral blending and segmenting in Aspect 7 Adult-led activities Illustrated freely chosen activities Continues well beyond introduction of Phase 2 N.B. As all settings/ nurseries etc should be using L&S and covering much of Phase One, the recommendation is that Phase 2 will be started after a review of Phase One (particularly Aspect 7) Phase 1 - Subject Knowledge Phase 1 is absolutely vital – this is started at pre-school. It is the one phase that shouldn't come to an end. These skills should continue to be developed throughout KS1 and KS2. Phase 1 develops children’s abilities to listen to, make, explore and talk about sounds. This phase is split into 7 aspects that are explored and developed through games. Aspect One: General sound discrimination – environmental sounds Aspect Two: Instrumental Sounds Aspect Three: Body Percussion Aspect Four: Rhythm and Rhyme Aspect Five: Alliteration Aspect Six: Voice Sounds Aspect Seven: Oral Segmenting and Blending

Phase 2 Introduces 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) Decoding and encoding taught as reversible processes As soon as children have a small number of grapheme/phoneme correspondences, blending and segmenting can start ( s/a/t/p/i/n/) ‘Tricky’ words Typical duration: Up to 6 weeks Phase 2 - Subject Knowledge GPCs need to be introduced in systematic way. 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 ss It is very important that you pronounce these phonemes clearly and correctly. If you don't, children may find it very difficult to blend them together. When introducing GPCs, ensure you introduce them with the sounds, pictures, actions and lots of practise for forming the letter. You can form the letter with a finger in the air, on the palm of the hand, on the back of another child, on a rough surface like the floor. All these experiences will need to come before trying to write the letter on a whiteboard or piece of paper.

Phase 3 Introduces another 25 graphemes Most comprising two letters One representation of each of 43 phonemes Reading and spelling two syllable words and captions Typical duration: Up to 12 weeks We also sing songs to help reinforce the sounds. Phase 3 - Subject Knowledge Phase 3 continues in the same way as Phase 2 and introduces more new GPCs. By the end of Phase 3 the children will know one way of writing down each of the 44 phonemes. Set 6 - j v w x Set 7 - y z zz qu Consonant digraphs - ch sh th ng Vowel digraphs (and trigraphs) ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur ow oi ear air ure er Make sure that you are very confident about what the term CVC means. It refers to words with a consonant phoneme, a vowel phoneme and then a consonant phoneme - it is not referring to letters. Therefore hot, bed, boat and ship are all CVC words but cow and toy are not.

Phase 4 Blending / two syllable words This phase :Consolidates knowledge of Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences No new GPCs taught. Children are taught to segment and blend adjacent consonants. e.g. truck, help, flack Phase 4 - Subject Knowledge The main challenge in this phase is to help children to blend and segment words with adjacent consonants e.g. truck, help. These adjacent consonant phonemes can both be heard when you say the word which makes them different from a digraph where there are two letters that make just one sound. Be careful, lots of people get these confused, including some published materials.

Phonics Lesson Children in Reception, Y1 and Y2 should have a 15-20 minute phonics session every day. This session should be fast, fun and multisensory (see above). Each session will follow a clear sequence as follows: Introduction - The teacher will explain to the children what they will be learning today and get them enthusiastic and motivated for the session.

Revisit and Review Revisit and review - The children will play a quickfire game to practise something they have learned before and help build their confidence.

Teach Teach - The children will be taught a new phoneme/grapheme or a new skill - this will be taught in a fun multisensory way and may well involve: songs, actions, pictures, puppets, writing giant letters in the air.

Practise Practise - The children play fast, fun games to practise the new thing they have just learned. Many of the games on this site will be used in this section of the session.

Apply Apply - The children will have a quick go at reading or writing sentences that involve the new thing they have just learned. Each of these sections lasts a few minutes at most. Outside of the phonics session children should be given lots of opportunities to apply the new skills that they have learned in all the lessons that they do. The more opportunities they are given the sooner they will become confident with these skills.  

Will a fish fit in a van? Is a robin as big as a shop?

What can you do Articulation Say/segment/blend Read lots of rich texts Spellings –Yr 1 and Yr 2- look cover write check Letter formation Finish b

Over to you On each of the tables are some phonic activities for you to try. Walk around and have a look and play with the resources. If you have any questions then please ask.