1. Phonics Letters and Sounds
Information for Parents
October 2013

2. It is a requirement that Foundation Stage children are taught 20 mins of letters and sounds per day.
It is recommended that Year 1 and 2 children also receive 20mins per day.

3. Phonics at a glance Phonics is… Skills of segmentation and blending
Knowledge of the alphabetic code.

4. Phonics Consists of: Identifying sounds in spoken words.
Recognising the common spellings of each phoneme.
Blending phonemes into words for reading.
Segmenting words into phonemes for spelling.

5. How many phonemes can you hear in
Some Definitions
A Phoneme
This is the smallest unit of sound in a word.
How many phonemes can you hear in
cat?

6. t ai igh A grapheme These are the letters that represent the phoneme.
The grapheme could be 1 letter, 2 letters or more! We refer to these as sound buttons.
t ai igh

7. A phoneme you hear
A grapheme you see

8. Key Vocabulary Digraph Trigraph Split diagraph
2 letters making one sound ( ai, ee, oo)
3 letters making one sound ( igh , dge )
Where the two letters are not adjacent
( a-e, e-e )

9. Blending (for reading)
Recognising the letter sounds in a written word e.g c-u-p sh-ee-p.
Merging them into the correct order to pronounce the word cup and sheep.

10. Segmenting (for spelling)
Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m , s-t-or-k) and writing down letters for each sound (phoneme) to form the word him and stork.

11. Enunciation
Teaching phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation.
Phonemes (sounds) should be articulated clearly and precisely.
Your mouth shape changes each time you say a new sound, it is therefore important for a child to watch your mouth when learning a new sound and counting the number of phonemes in a word.
Phonic sounds demonstration video
Search ‘Phonemes of the English Alphabetic Code Synthetic Phonics’ on YouTube to find Mr Thorne at home.

12. The ‘Letters and Sounds’ document is split into 6 distinct phases.
The Phases Explained
The ‘Letters and Sounds’ document is split into 6 distinct phases.

13. Phase 1 (pre school) Showing an awareness of rhyme and alliteration.
Distinguishing between sounds in the environment and phonemes.
Exploring and experimenting with sounds and words.
Discriminating speech sounds in words.
Beginning to orally blend and segment phonemes.

14. Phase 2 (Foundation Stage 6 wks)
Using common consonants and vowels.
Blending for reading and segmenting for spelling simple cvc words.
Understanding that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes.

15. Letter sets (phase 2 up to 6wks )
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, f, ff, l, ll, ss,

16. Phase 3 (Foundation Stage 12 wks )
Knowing one grapheme for each of the 43 phoneme. There are 43 phonemes in the English language!
Reading and spelling a wide range of cvc words.
Using all letters and less frequent consonant digraphs and some long vowel phonemes.

17. Letter Progression:
Set 6 - j, v, w, x
Set 7 - y, z, zz, qu
Consonant digraphs:
ch, sh, th, ng.
ear, air, ure, er, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo

18. Phase 4 (Foundation/Year 1up to 6wks )
This is a consolidation unit. There are no new graphemes to learn. Reading and spelling of tricky words continues.
Segmenting adjacent consonants in words and applying this in spelling.
Blending adjacent consonants in words and applying this skill when reading unfamiliar texts.

19. Phase 5 (throughout Year 1)
Reading phonetically decodable two-syllable and three-syllable words.
Using alternative ways of pronouncing and spelling the graphemes corresponding to the long vowel phonemes.
Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts.

20. This is where it gets tricky!
Phonemes are represented by graphemes.
A grapheme can consist of 1, 2 or more letters.
A phoneme can be represented/spelled in more than one way (rain, day, gate)
The same grapheme may represent more than one phoneme (cow, low)

21. Graphemes:
ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e.
Alternative graphemes for:
i, o, c, g, u, ow, ie, ea, er, a, y, ch, ou

22. Phase 6 (Year 2 throughout)
Recognising phonic irregularities and becoming more secure with less common grapheme – phoneme correspondences.
Applying phonic skills and knowledge to recognise and spell an increasing number of complex words.
Introducing and teaching the past tense
Investigating and learning how to add suffixes
Teaching spelling long words
Finding and learning the difficult bits in words

23. Key Words
In addition to this, each the week the children learn ‘tricky’ spelling words (those that are not spelt phonetically) and key sight vocabulary.
New tricky words are introduced within each phase.
Words that are initially tricky to the children may become decodable when new sounds are introduced, some words will always be tricky words

24. Grouping
The children always work within the phase that is appropriate to their level of learning.
They are assessed regularly and groupings are sorted accordingly.
Therefore the suggested model of year group and corresponding phase, does not always go hand in hand with the year group that your child is actually in.

25. Structure of a Lesson REVISIT and REVIEW -revise new sounds TEACH
-teach new sounds
CONSOLIDATE
-Practise new and revised sounds
PRACTISE
-Practise new and revised sounds
APPLY
-After each new sound is taught identify sound in texts read and use when spelling

26. Example Activities
Phonics is taught practically, minimal recording is done on white boards on the carpet.
Robot arms
Phoneme frames
Best bet
ICT games
Pirate treasure
Picture sort
Phoneme spotter stories
Sentence substitution
Yes /no sentences

27. How many phonemes are in each of these words?
bleed
flop
cow
jumper
chair
crayon

28. Put the sound buttons under these words
speed
crayon
slight
toast
broom
foil
crawl
jumper

30. Examples of resources and children’s work are available to look at the end.

31. Year 1 Phonics Screening Check
The screening check contains 40 words divided into two sections.
Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words (nonsense or alien words). This is to ensure children are applying their phonological skills rather than relying on sight word recognition.

32. Nonsense words
drep
blom
gris
sneep
claind

33. Year 1 Phonics Screening Check
Section 1
grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) first introduced to children learning to decode phonics (phase 2/3)
simple word structures
Section 2
GPCs introduced later and graphemes that correspond to more than one phoneme (phase 5)
More complex word structure, including two syllable words

34. Example words Section 1: Section 2: tox bim geck chom shin week best
hooks
Section 2:
voo
jound
day
snemp
blurst
slide
finger
starling

35. Flash cards

36. Year 1 Phonics Screening Check
The check will take place during June 2014.
It helps the school confirm whether your child has made the expected progress.
Your child will sit with a teacher they know and be asked to read the 40 words.
Some of the words they will have read before, some will be completely new.
The test normally takes just a few minutes and there is no time limit.
If your child is struggling, the teacher can easily stop the check
The check is carefully designed not to be stressful to your child.

37. After the Check
We will tell you about your child’s progress in phonics and how they have done in the screening check in the last half-term of Year 1.
If your child has found the check difficult, we will tell you what support will be put in place as your child moves into Year 2.
Children who have not achieved the expected level (above 32 out of 40 words) will have the opportunity to retake the screening during Year 2.

38. How to help at home

39. Phonics works best when children are given plenty of encouragement and learn to enjoy reading and sharing books. Parents play a very important role in this.
Look out for the sounds your child has been learning in school when you read with them.
Use correct pronunciation and 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.
Link it to your child’s interests.

40. Where Can I Go To Find Out More?
See handout / website

41.
This is great for some resources that you can use at home.