Phonics

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

Correct pronunciation 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 (in school it is every day for 20 mins) Link it to your child’s interests. Essentials

Phase 1 Phase one of letters and sounds programme is all about developing your child’s listening skills and most of this is done through rhymes and listening games. The programme is divided into 7 aspects and 3 strands

The Seven aspects. 1.General sound discrimination-environmental sounds. 2. General sound discrimination-instrumental sounds. 3.General sound discrimination- body percussion. 4.Rhythm and rhyme. 5.Alliteration 6.Voice sounds. 7.Oral blending and segmenting.

The 3 strands Each aspect is divided into three strands: Tuning into sounds. Listening and remembering sounds. Talking about sounds.

About the activities All the activities within the programme help children to Listen attentively Enlarge their vocabulary Speak confidently Discriminate phonemes Begin to segment words

Games in aspects 1-4 Some of the games and activities in aspects 1-3 are going for listening walks, playing sound lotto games, making up sound stories, guessing instrument sounds, making up actions to go with songs, follow the leader games and singing rhymes. Later in aspect 4 we play lots of rhyming games, rhyming bingo, finish the rhyme and guess the odd one out.

Games in strands 5-7 Strands 5-7 focus children on hearing and recognising letter sounds. Playing I spy games, finding objects with the same initial sound, using mirrors to see how their mouth makes each sound. Making long/short sounds, animal sounds and using different voices. Making teddy talk, crossing the river games, feely bag games.

Phase 2 Learning 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. 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 fff lll ss Blending sounds together to make words (reading). Segmenting words into their separate sounds (spelling). Beginning to read simple captions.

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 ‘ROBOT ARMS’

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 e.g. out, there

Phase 2 thetogo noisit inatand I Tricky Words!

Phase 3 ch chip ar farm sh shop or for th thin/then ur hurt ng ring ow cow ai rain oi coin ee feet ear dear igh night air fair oa boat ure sure oo boot/look er corner Set 6: j v w x Set 7: y z zz qu

Phase 3 Tricky Words heshethe tonogo Iweme bewasmy youtheyher allare

The Process Revisit/Review Practise previously learned phonemes (sounds), graphemes (letters) and tricky words Teach new phonemes,graphemes and tricky words Practise blending to read and segmenting to spell Apply Read or write a caption or sentence using phonics and tricky words

Phase 4 No new sounds are taught in this phase. Children learn to blend (read) and segment (spell): longer words with adjacent consonants e.g. swim, clap, jump two-syllable words e.g. lunchbox