Phonics Workshop Wednesday 3rd October 2018

Agenda Outline the basics of phonics Explain useful terms How phonics is taught at St Luke’s How to support the learning of phonics at home Sharing of activities and opportunities to ask questions

What is phonics? A method of teaching children how to read and write. When your child is learning to read there are two crucial things to learn: the sounds represented by written letters how to blend the sounds together to make words.

“Synthetic phonics offers the vast majority of young children the best and most direct route to becoming skilled readers and writers” Sir Jim Rose, Rose Review of Reading 2006

Terminology Phoneme Graphemes Digraph Trigraph Split digraph    Digraph   Trigraph Split digraph Sound buttons Segmenting and blending Real and pseudo words.

Phonemes and Graphemes Phoneme – Sounds that can be heard in words. Grapheme – How a phoneme is written down. Phoneme Grapheme

Digraph, Trigraph, Split Digraph Digraph – 2 letters that make a sound. E.g. oo, ee, oa Trigraph – 3 letters that make a sound. E.g. igh. Split digraph – When a vowel sound has been split with a consonant. ‘e’ on the end? Find it’s friend!

Segmenting and blending Segmenting – Breaking down a word by saying each of the phonemes. Blending – Merging the phonemes together to make a word. Sh ee p Sheep

Phoneme Frames – Segmenting for spelling

Sound buttons: Used as actions and as written form. A dot for a single phoneme A line for a digraph or trigraph Bridge for split digraph Stay Bright Shine

Pseudo Words Alien words/fake words/nonsense words

How to say the sounds Saying the sounds correctly with your child is extremely important. The 44 phonemes /b/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /k/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/ /v/ /w/ /y/ /z/ /th/ /ch/ /sh/ /zh/ /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ /ae/ /ee/ /ie/ /oe/ /ue/ /oo/ /ar/ /ur/ /au/ /er/ /ow/ /oi/ /air/ /ear/ /ure/

Letters and Sounds Sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven. Letters and Sounds is divided into six phases, with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. Children have time to practise their ability to read and spell words. They are also taught to read and spell ‘tricky words’, which are words with spellings that are unusual.

Phase 1 Phase One of Letters and Sounds concentrates on developing children's speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonics work which starts in Phase 2. The emphasis during Phase 1 is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. Environmental sounds Instrumental sounds Body percussion Rhythm and Rhyme Alliteration Voice sounds Oral blending and segmenting

Phase 2 In Phase 2, letters and their sounds are introduced one at a time. A set of letters is taught each week, in the following sequence: 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

Phase 3 The purpose of this phase is to: teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat Introduce trigraphs ‘igh’ practise blending and segmenting words such as fizz, chip, sheep, light learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them read and write words in phrases and sentences.  

Phase 4 In Phase 4, no new graphemes are introduced. The main aim of this phase is to consolidate the children's knowledge and to help them learn to read and spell words which have adjacent consonants, such as trap, string and milk. New tricky words to be introduced and further practice of sentence writing.

Phase 5 New phonemes and graphemes to learn. More tricky words introduced. Different graphemes for phonemes that they already know. E.g. ‘ur’ and ‘er’ in phase 3, ‘ir’ in phase 5. ‘ai’ in phase 3, ‘ay’ and ‘a-e’ in phase 5. Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced. E.g. ‘ea’ = read, head, break ‘y’ = yes, yellow, by, try, gym, very, happy

Phase 6 In Phase Six the main aim is for children to become more fluent readers and more accurate spellers. Continue to apply graphemes from previous phases. Focus on spelling rules and strategies. Prefixes and suffixes Past tense Plurals Apostrophes

Phonics at St Luke’s At St Luke's Phonics is taught for 20 minutes each day throughout EYFS and  Key Stage 1. The programme is built on through school enabling the teaching of essential spelling, grammar and punctuation skills (SPAG). Children are grouped across  EYFS and Key Stage 1 according the Phase they are working at.

What does a lesson look like? In each year group, phonic lessons follow the same format: Revise: The children will revise previous learning. Teach: New phonemes or high frequency or tricky words will be taught. Practise: The children will practise the new learning by reading and/or writing the words. Apply: The children will apply their new learning by reading or writing sentences.

Spelling Tests Spellings that the children will be working on that week go out every Monday and are tested on the following Friday. Graphemes and words taught must also be being applied within the children’s writing.

Phonics Screening Check Children in Year 1 throughout the country will all be taking part in a phonics screening check during the same week in June. The test consists of reading 40 words to their teacher. These are a combination of real words and pseudo words. By the end of the summer term all schools must report each child's results to their parents. They will also confirm if the child has met the standard threshold. Children who do not achieve the expected level will retake the test when they are in Year 2.

How to help at home Read as much as possible to and with your child. Give lots of encouragement and praise. Practice reading ‘alien’ words as well as real words. Use sound mats to revisit sounds the children have previously been taught. Encourage your child to use sound buttons. When writing, encourage application of phonics. Use sound mats and phoneme frames. Ask what looks right when considering alternate graphemes. Encourage your child to ‘have a go’. Re-read to check that words/sentences make sense. Play phonics games. (Ideas to be used from classrooms).

Resources Phonicsplay.co.uk Oxfordowl.co.uk Familylearning.co.uk Phonicsbloom.com

Activities and Questions Please feel free to go and look in the Key Stage One classrooms at some resources and activities that we use in class.