Phonics at Sarisbury Infant School Year 1

What is phonics? Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to: Recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes; Identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make - such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’; and Blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word.

How often, long and when? Your child will receive a daily phonics session lasting approximately 20mins. They will be taught by their class teacher as a whole class at the appropriate level for the year group. Any child who needs additional support and requires further consolidation of the previous sounds taught will receive a short individual/small group session at another time in the day from either the class teacher or one of our highly skilled LSAs.

What happened in year R Your child would have covered phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 Phase 1- Environmental sounds Phase 2- Initial phonemes Phase 3- Digraphs Phase 4- Recapping what has been taught

sat s a t sat What is a phoneme? Individual unit of sound Children are taught to segment and blend these phonemes to read a word sat s a t sat

What is a digraph/ trigraph Two phonemes making one sound Three phonemes making one sound light boat

A typical phonics lesson   The short lessons are fast paced and consist of four parts. Review and Revisit Teach Practise Apply

Review and Revisit Recap all of the sounds already learnt Teachers show children flashcards- How many can you do in a minute, boys against girls, games or treasure hunt Consolidates learning These sounds are in the environment throughout the year

Teach a new sound Children are introduced to a new sound everyday In year 1 the children will be learning alternative pronunciations of digraphs already taught They will also learn split digraphs

Split digraphs-The vowel sound has been split Year 1 phase 5 Split digraphs-The vowel sound has been split cake

Learning the new sound Children will learn the digraph Monster phonics Will make links to previous learning

Practise Will read words that contain the digraph Will practise saying the words in robot talk Interactive Alien words

Apply Children will be asked to write words that contain the new digraph Will read sentences that contain the new digraph Write a sentence using the new sound taught Games- phonics play, real or alien words

What happens once all of the sounds have been taught? Children will have constant learning of the new sounds all year More alien words will be introduced Spring term selecting the correct digraph when spelling and which rules to follow ai ay a-e

Phonics Screening Check Every child in year 1 will undertake the Phonics Screening check in June They will have to read 20 real words and 20 alien words Children will not know they are doing the check Results will be given to you at the end of the year

Some terminology explained Robot or Fred Talk – This is when words are broken down into each discreet sound. Phoneme Fingers – This is when the phonemes are counted and the matching number of fingers are held up. Sound buttons or Sausages and Beans – This is when dots and dashes are marked under a word to show knowledge of the sounds. Phoneme – This is a discreet unit of sound. Digraph – Where two letters make one sound (er, sh, ee) Trigraph – Where three letters make one sound (igh, ear) Grapheme – The written form of the sound