Phonics Workshop for Parents December 2015 Sandcastles

A skill for life. Reading is the access to lots of knowledge. Sandcastles children have spent the last 3 months learning some of the sounds/phonemes used in the English language. s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f ff

A skill for life. They are at the beginning of an exciting journey. For many of them, how quickly they develop as an independent reader depends on how much input comes from home.

Games Whilst they are still learning new sounds: Play lots of sound games/listening skills games – Oral segmenting (saying words and splitting them into individual sounds) – Oral blending (saying sounds and making words ) – Talk about sounds and encourage children to hear them in words. (mirror with sound cards) – Model good listening and good spoken English. Exaggerate hidden sounds.

WOW words Extend your child’s vocabulary. Children will use fantastic WOW words if we introduce them. Think big. Have high expectations. A child can understand long, descriptive words if we explain what they mean and how we use them. Give them examples and ask them if they can think of their own examples e.g. magnificent, extraordinary, delicious, fabulous, Use structured, comprehensible sentences that children can verbally copy.

More Games. Daily – use lots of visual aids e.g. Display boards. Use objects that children can relate to. Point out sounds when reading to your child – at every opportunity, in school, when shopping etc. The children will then start to point them out to you – Celebrate this!! It is an exciting time for them. Be excited for them. Write the sound down – play with it – use it in different words. Show your child that the sound can also be found in the middle and ends of words.

Word Build Play games involving building words using the phonemes the child knows. If you can read it – can you write it? Link reading, writing and talking together. As the children progress up the school, it will be expected that they write lovely, descriptive stories using imaginative language. They cannot do this if they have a limited vocabulary.

Making conversation One study (Hart and Risley, 2006) found that the significant variability in children's vocabulary at the age of three was strongly related to the amount of talking parents did with their children. Specifically, they found that parents who used 'conversational' speech with their children (talking about what they did, what they saw and what they thought about what they did and what they saw-- basically just making conversation with their children on a regular and on-going basis) had children with significantly higher vocabularies and IQs at age three than children whose parents used mainly directive speech (get this, do that, come over here).

Why are we learning these sounds? Sometimes it is not obvious to a child. What is the point? So that they can read. e.g. ME a story, read labels in supermarkets, read story books, read comics. What do we make when we blend sounds together – words! And we put words together to make sentences. Show them what this means in the books that you read to them. How many words are there in the sentences in their books?

Tricky Sticky Bug Words Words that cannot be phonetically sounded out. They just have to be learnt (visual recognition). See list in Reading Record Book (e.g. the, to, no, go, I)

Nonsense Words Words that make no sense in the English language. Thanks to the Year 1 Phonics screening test, children now need to be able to phonetically sound these words out with confidence.

Turn it all off! No app can replace your lap!!! Try and have as few distractions as possible when reading. Turn the television off. Be in control. Children will sometimes find any excuse not to read. Be insistent! This is quiet reading time before bed.

Books to read at home. READ EVERY DAY (sorry about the capitals but this is important). At whatever stage of their reading journey, all children enjoy listening to stories. Please do not replace this with a T.V. programme or ipad. Most progress is made when children read and are read to daily. Model good reading e.g. Bedtime story. If a child cannot read they struggle to access the curriculum.

Stories Talk about the pictures, introduce new words, talk about punctuation and use expression. There are many different strategies all leading to the ultimate goal. Using the picture, reading whole words by sight, predicting the remainder of the sentence etc. They are all important strategies. Once your child comes home with their reading scheme book please continue to read their story books as well. This is really important. They help to extend their vocabulary and improve their speaking and listening skills.

Reading Books We have begun to issue reading scheme books to children who are able to hear and make a blend. It is important that they reach this stage first before being issued with these books as it can be frustrating for them (and you) if they take them home and cannot read them. Books with pictures.

Introducing New Books When hearing a child read a new book we always introduce the book before the child reads it. The reasons for this are that the book should not feel like a test. When you go through the whole book with the child you are sharing the pleasure of the story and information within the book. Any fear of a new book is dispelled. Going through the story reminds the child that there is a storyline and should encourage the child to listen to his/her own reading, and not just approach the book word by word.

Book Introductions contd. When you introduce the story it allows you to remove any obstacles for a smooth read – for example – any obviously unfamiliar vocab. Also it allows you to focus on any good reading behaviour from that child for example that they look at the picture to cross check the meaning with the text. Etc.

What Next? Once the book has been introduced, the child can then read it, or part of it (the higher the level the longer the book). Try not to correct the child when they are in full flow. At an appropriate moment take the child back to a mistake and see if they can put it right, giving them positive encouragement all the way. These are known as prompts.

Prompts Prompts are what you might say to the child before reading or after they have read to you to help them focus on their skills. You are prompting for the child to use an integrated approach to reading so that they don’t rely purely on phonics to decode a word. Children need to remember to listen to themselves read to check that the story makes sense.

Prompt Cards Here is a prompt card for you. You can use these to help your feedback to the child. These will help you be more specific with your praise to the child so that instead of saying “Good Reading!” you might think the child had thought hard about the story as well as looked carefully at the words so you may say “Good Reading! I really liked the way you used the picture to help you.” “Good looking!”

Pace We try and encourage the children to read at a good pace to help improve their processing skills. Pace and putting words together are really important from really early on. When a child can read with good pace the meaning of the story is not lost. Selecting books that have repetition and rhyme will help increase the pace of a read. Try and encourage pace from early on using prompts from the prompt card and also modelling sentences of the book and then asking the child to read the same sentence.

Fluency and phrasing This is slightly different to pace, in that it focuses on words that naturally go together, as they do when we speak. Eg. “Come on!” “Mother Bear” “Teddy Bear” Good fluency can help children to decode a word that may come next. Mum and Dad!

Expression This is linked with the punctuation in the text. In the book introduction, try and bring in the importance of changing your voice according to punctuation. Use your prompt card to help you, for example. “ How could you change your voice?” or “How can you change your voice when you see these marks on the page?”

AND FINALLY!! Try and let the child correct their own mistakes by using prompts such as “You said Does that make sense? This way you are encouraging independence in the young reader Always make the reading together a relaxed and happy, positive experience for the child. Thank you very much. We are very grateful to you for your time hearing children read at home. Please come and see us if you have any concerns or questions.

Christmas Homework Over the Christmas period play word building games using the phonic cards. As well as making up new words keep revisiting the old ones so that your child becomes really familiar with them. This builds up their confidence. For an extra challenge, ask your child to write the words they have made up. Encourage them to use Hamstreet Harry cursive script.