Ranvilles Infant School Phonics Workshop

What is Phonics? Knowledge of letters and the sounds they make. Skills of blending these sounds together to read words. Skills of segmenting the sounds in a word and choosing the correct letters needed to spell it.

How do we teach Phonics? Letters and Sounds Phases 1-6 The children are set across their Year groups, according to the phase of Letters and Sounds they are working on. They receive minutes focussed phonics teaching each day.

Phoneme- The sounds in a word How many phonemes in the word clap? c-l-a-pc-l-a-p How many phonemes in the word chat? ch-a-t

Sound Buttons c l a p ch a t

There are 44 phonemes that the children learn throughout the Letters and Sounds Programme. As well as the sounds of the letters of the alphabet there are also … Consonant digraphs- Consonant digraphs- contain 2 consonants Put together they make a new phoneme and are not heard individually e.g. ch th ll ck sh Vowel digraphs- Vowel digraphs- contain 2 letters, at least one is a vowel e.g. ai ee oa ar or oy ow er a_e i_e (split digraphs – e on the end) Trigraph Trigraph – contain 3 letters e.g. ear igh dge

Correct pronunciation of phonemes is very important in helping children read and spell correctly. We use Jolly phonics actions as a reminder to children on how to pronounce these. The pronunciation of the consonant phonemes can be grouped: 1. f l m n r s z v sh th zh (continuous) 2. c p t ch h (short, soft) 3.b d g w qu y j (short) phonemes/4

Unfortunately, these 44 phonemes are not spelled in the same way! Children are gradually introduced to more alternative spellings as they progress through the Letters and Sounds Programme. Grapheme – The letter/letters we use to spell a phoneme/digraph/trigraph. Some have more than one grapheme How many ways can we spell the long e phoneme? e.g. he / sweet / seal / baby How many ways can we spell the f phoneme? e.g. family / photograph

t tw w i i g g s s Phoneme frame

b boo oo t t

High Frequency Words (HFWs) These are common words that are useful for children to learn to read and spell. As children progress through the phases of Letters and Sounds they are introduced to sets of HFWs. Some words are decodable which children can blend to read e.g. then. Some are tricky words e.g. said, which are not phonically decodable and are learned by sight. CVC words – Consonant-Vowel-Consonant These are simple words which children start with when they begin to blend sounds e.g. sat pin

Phase 1 Children explore sounds and words and develop awareness of rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. They learn how to orally blend sounds and distinguish different sounds in words. Phase 1 is generally started in pre- school and continues as children begin YR. They are usually ready to move on from it by the first half term in Autumn.

Phase 2 Children are introduced to at least 19 letters and corresponding sounds. They begin to read and spell simple CVC words. They also begin to read High Frequency words. Phase 2 is generally completed in Year R.

Phase 3 Children learn one grapheme for a further 25 phonemes. These include consonant and vowel digraphs (e.g. ch, ng, ai, oa) and trigraphs (e.g. igh, air). They read and spell HFWs. Phase 3 is generally completed in YR.

Phase 4 Children read and spell words containing consonant clusters. These are 2 or more consonants, but when put together, each can be heard as individual phonemes e.g. cl dr sk mp nd. Words containing these are known as CCVC and CVCC words. e.g. black, strip, chest). Phase 4 is generally started at the beginning of Year 1, but may sometimes be covered at the end of YR then recapped at the start of Y1.

Phase 5 Children learn alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught. They read and spell HFWs. Phase 5 is a long unit, taught throughout Year 1.

Phase 6 Children apply their phonic skills and knowledge to recognise and spell an increasing number of words. They investigate and learn to add suffixes to words and to spell words in the past tense. Phase 6 is taught throughout Year 2.

How can you support your child? In today’s workshop, you will have the opportunity to visit your child’s classroom to work on some phonics activities with them (20 minute session) On returning to the hall, you will have the opportunity to look at or have a go at some phonics games yourself! As part of the information to take home from today’s workshop, is a list of useful websites with games and resources to support phonics learning.