Phonics and reading at Lovington C of E Primary School

Most important thing – from a very early age… Talking and Listening Reading with and to your child Playing listening games Singing songs and rhymes Simple movement games Without background noise All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

PHASE 1 General sound discrimination Environmental sounds Instrumental sounds Body percussion Listening walks, drumming outdoors, matching sounds, action songs, “Noisy Neighbours”

Rhythm and rhyme Rhyming books, “Silly Soup”, rhyming bingo, rhyming pairs, songs and rhymes, odd one out. Alliteration I spy names, making and naming aliens, Bertie the Bus. Voice sounds Mouth movements, Metal Mike, Whose voice?, sound lotto, animal sounds, singing songs. Oral blending and segmenting Toy talk, clapping sounds, “Cross the River”, I spy,

PHASE 2 PHONICS Correct pronunciation – ‘t’ not ‘tuh’ Correct vocabulary We all need to use the same language at home and at school. Little and often is the key. Does not have to be formal. Link it to your child’s interests.

PHONEME We concentrate on the sound a letter makes not the letter name. This sound is the phoneme. The smallest unit of sound in a word. There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

Order of the phonemes in Phase 2 s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f l ff ll ss

GRAPHEME Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

BLENDING Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

SEGMENTING ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out The opposite of blending Use your fingers for each phoneme

Segment and Blend these words… drep blom gris Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

Once children are good with single phonemes… DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ll ss zz oa ai TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh air

Segmenting Activity Use your fingers to say how many phonemes in each word. shelf dress sprint string

Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

TRICKY WORDS Words that are not phonically decodeable e.g. was, the, I Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodeable once we have learned the harder phonemes later on e.g. out, there,

Letter formation As the phonemes are introduced we talk about the shapes of the letters. We also look at the letter formation and use mnemonics to help us remember. Writing at this stage is in the air, on our bodies, in the mud, the shaving foam and sometimes on paper.

Phase 3 Once the children are secure with their phonic knowledge of Phase 2 – assessment More digraphs/trigraphs eg ur, ai, ear,igh More challenging tricky words.

Word Pyramids Key words found in front of reading books in Phases for you to help your child practice- a sight vocabulary Regular reading- in different orders. Turn into games- snap, pairs, find it

Reading Play lots of sound and listening games with your child. Read as much as possible with your child. Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’. Does it sound right? Does it look right? Does that make sense?

Reading …continued Readers are writers! Read to your child - a more difficult/variety of texts and talk about the new vocabulary, characters, storyline, information etc Look at different punctuation Make it fun! Readers are writers!

Useful websites www.letters-and-sounds.com www.phonicsplay.co.uk See handout