Gold Class 30th November 2015

Aims of workshop To help you to support your child to read & write. To show you how (and why) we teach phonics & handwriting. To develop your confidence to use synthetic phonics with your child.

Why do we teach phonics? Research has shown that phonics is the most effective way to teach young children to read & write. (It is not the only way).

How do we teach phonics? We use a combination of: ‘Jolly Phonics’, ‘Letters & Sounds’ and ‘Sounds-Write’ to teach phonics

Jolly Phonics Jolly Phonics uses pictures, stories & actions to teach 44 sounds Each letter (and combination of letters) makes one sound. These are called phonemes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCjJYB07aSU

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Some sounds are written with two letters or more Phonics Some sounds are written with two letters or more These are called digraphs Jolly phonics Diagraphs link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYCkBK9RTkU

ai ee ie oa ue or ng oo/oo ch sh th/th qu ou oi er ar igh

Blending Blending is a technique where we say the individual sounds in a word and then run the sounds together to make the word. E.g. sounding out the individual sounds in dog like this d-o-g. Blending improves with practice. It is better to keep it pacey, when modelling.

Blending Look at these examples... pig meet train ship

Segmenting Segmenting is when you break down a word into the component sounds in order to write. First, say the word clearly, then identify each sound you hear and write them down. It helps to count the sounds. For instance saying the word ‘cat’, hearing the sounds c-a-t helps the child to spell it.

dad coat rain stick conker Segmenting Now say and find the sounds in these words... How many are there? dad coat rain stick conker

Tricky words & sounds Some words are easier to learn as ‘tricky’ words and we teach children to learn these on sight. e.g. the go he to no said she Some words have double letters. e.g. fluff floppy rabbit In some words the digraphs are split. e.g. kite Pete mute

Handwriting We teach a cursive script across the school In Reception, we prepare children by teaching thee three basic techniques

Pincer or ‘Froggy Finger’ grip Writing anti-clockwise & retracing vertical lines Lots of practice using pre-cursive script

Soundwrite exercise There are lots of phonics apps out there to download onto phones and tablets. Before you download make sure that: The app is appropriate for your childs needs The app blends and segments the phonic sounds The app uses the English language/accent not American! And uses lowercase letters

Soundswrite Reception uses the app Sounds-write available in all app stores to download for FREE. Type the code: 2090 into the I-pad. Scroll through the apps until you see the Sounds-write app symbol. Click on the Reception ‘child’ profile

You will then come to this screen Soundwrite allows you to go through each stage of learning the phonic sounds. You can build words by blending and segmenting, playing phoneme recognition or blending to read.

When the children join us we will be using the blending and segmenting rules to read and write some words and a sentence.

Can you use your sounds to read these words? sat pin sit 20

Can you use your sounds to write a word to go with the picture? 21

Now have a go at reading a sentence. The cat and the dog. 22

Have a go at using the Soundswrite app on the ipad The code is: 2090

Before you go… In Reception, teachers keep an interactive record of your child’s learning and progress using an app called 2Simple. We use this app to build up a profile of your child’s learning journey throughout the year. As part of the 2simple package, we are exploring the option of sharing some of the observations we make in class with parents using a service called 2Engage. If you are interested in this option of receiving examples of your child’s learning via email, please take this time to fill out the letter given to you with an up-to-date email address and hand it back to the teacher at the end of the session.