Welcome Reception Parents/Carers Phonics Workshop Welcome Reception Parents/Carers

What is phonics? Phonics is a method for teaching reading and writing of the English language by developing children's ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sounds. When taught systematically, children understand the relationship  between letters and sounds. 

Phonic Phases Phase 1- taught in Nursery. This develops children speaking and listening skills. Phase 2 and 3- taught in Reception. This develops children's understanding of letters and the sounds that they make, enabling early reading and writing to take place. Children are also taught to read high frequency and tricky words. Phase 4- taught in Reception. This builds on children’s knowledge and application of the sounds taught and introduces more high frequency and tricky words.

Phonic Phases Phase 5- taught in Year 1. Introduces more sounds along with high frequency and tricky words. This phase also explores alternative pronunciations and spelling of phonic sounds. Phase 6- taught in Year 2. Uses all phonic knowledge taught so far to skill children in becoming fluent readers and accurate writers/spellers.

Phonic sounds Grapheme- a letter or group of letters that represents a sound Phoneme- a unit of sound Example: Grapheme = letter A Phoneme = sound ‘a’

Digraphs and Trigraphs Digraphs- two letters which join together to make one sound meet boat rain Trigraphs- three letters which join together to make one sound night hear

Blending Blending- the process of saying each sound in a word and running them together to read the word. This process helps children with early reading. Children initially start by doing this orally (out loud) and then move on to using sound buttons to apply this in their reading.

Blending

Blending

Segmenting (‘chopping’) Segmenting/chopping- a method of breaking down each word into individual sounds to help children spell words. This again initially starts orally (out loud) and then children move on to representing each sound they say with the letter/letters which represent each sound.

Segmenting (‘chopping’)

Segmenting (‘chopping’)

High Frequency Words and Tricky words High frequency words- words which occur most frequently in reading and writing. We can use our sounds to blend and segment these. Tricky words- words which cannot be blended or segmented. These words are not decodable so children will need to learn these words by sight.

Tricky words

Useful resources Jolly phonics videos on the youtube website for the pronounciation and action for each sound http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ (useful for phonic games)

Useful resources Phonics Play website Sound recognition Flashcards Blending Buried treasure, picnic on pluto, dragons den Sentences Segmenting Rocket rescue, space race Tricky words Train your brain, sentences

Any questions? When exploring the activities please feel free to ask any questions you may have. Thank you for coming and for your continued support!