Striving for Excellence in EYFS St. James and St. John Primary School Phonics in Reception Class 2019

Early literacy begins with Phase One Phonics to develop listening, vocabulary and speaking skills. Listening to environmental sounds and recognising them. Bang of the door. Clap of the hands. Roar of a lion. Squeak of a mouse. Voice sounds, alliteration. Body percussion: stamping, clapping – listen copy repeat. Rhythm & rhyme – alphabet name song / nursery rhymes. Knowing the difference between numbers and letters. Turn taking games. Build a vocabulary to name the world around them – point, touch, say! Oral blending and segmenting (e.g. hearing that d-o-g makes ‘dog’) Activities include 'listening' walks, playing and identifying instruments, action songs, learning rhymes and playing games like I Spy.

Letters & Sounds Phase Two Phonics They will learn the most commonly used phonemes. 19 letters grouped into 5 sets. There are 44 sounds in all Using sky-writing, without pens, letter direction is taught at the same time the sounds are taught. All lower case letters are written from the top down.

Letters & Sounds Phase Three Phonics By the end of Phase 2 children should be able to read some vowel-consonant (VC) and consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, and to spell them out. They learn some high frequency ‘tricky words’ like ‘the’ and ‘go.’ Phase 3 phonics has about 25 phonemes in mainly two-letter combinations. More tricky words, are taught eg., ‘me,’ ‘was,’ ‘my,’ ‘you’ and ‘they’. Letters and Sounds captions are taught. http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/phase-3-resources.html

Letters & Sounds Phase Two & Three Phonics Teaching Tools and Techniques Jolly Phonics – Music & actions with games and simple words & captions. Sound buttons are buttons, circles or spots that can be written underneath a sound (phoneme) to support reading. When you touch the sound button you then practise saying the sound aloud. http://ictgames.com/soundButtons/index.html https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase3Menu.htm http://more2.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm Robot talk – is where the child says each sound and at the same time moves like a robot. Full Circle – is a game where the words are made by changing one letter at a time, rig, pig, pug, bug, mug, mum, hum, him, rim, rig. Buried Treasure – the child sounds out letters, blending to decide if the word is real. If it is it is treasure if not it goes in the bin. Turn to Partners – they work in pairs, write on each others hands or help each other to create simple captions using cvc words.

Most children will complete this phase by the end of Reception. Letters & Sounds Phase Four Phonics Phase Four Phonics concerns consolidating and refining knowledge, introducing more spelling patterns and tricky words and increasing vocab. Children should now be blending confidently to work out new words. They should be starting to be able to read words straight off, rather than having to sound them out. They should also be able to write every letter, mostly correctly. Most children will complete this phase by the end of Reception. 

Preparing for Year One Transition Reception children MUST use their letter sound knowledge in independent activities. They MUST use finger spaces to show where each word begins. They MUST use accurate letter direction. They should begin to use full stops and capital letters. They will have opportunities to read with the teacher. Their growing confidence will be assessed at regularly to check letter sound and key word knowledge, application & fluency. Most Reception children will be prepared for future reading and writing expectations through this rigorous but fun phonics teaching.

Thank you for your interest in Reception Phonics Miss Fish is always available for questions or to give advice. Please do not hesitate to arrange a meeting.