1. Looking at phonics in the Early Years (Nursery,Reception) and
Phonics is fun!
Looking at phonics in the Early Years (Nursery,Reception) and
Key Stage 1

2. So what is phonics? ay as in tray grapheme – how we write the sounds
phoneme – the sound letters make
ay as in tray
a as in baby
ai as in train ea as in great
a-e as in fate ey as in grey
eigh as in eight ei as in reindeer
eig as in reign
There may be many different ways of writing the same sound! This is the sound “ay” as in day or tray. It can be written as

3. What about digraphs, trigraphs and split digraphs?
Remember a grapheme is how we write the sound ….
tray
high
eight
note

4. Why is it all so complicated?
Some of the highlights!
Anglo-Saxon/ Old English (Germanic base - mixture of Latin and Scandinavian)
The Norman Conquest (introduction of French words)
Old English: street, sky, white, red, etc; Norman Conquest: changes pig – pork; deer – venison; brings us all of our legal terms – justice, lawyer; gives us fancy names: instead of Helgar, Osbert we have David, Stephen, Dictionary – even shakespear spelt his name several different ways; Back to the French – the swapping of final letters (RSVP; became stylish to write centre)
Invention of the dictionary (Samuel Johnson: 1775)!
Early fashions and trends

5. How do we teach phonics? Lessons – 20 mins every day
We teach Letters and Sounds
Lessons – 20 mins every day
Wall displays are used as reminders
Flash cards are used for quick recognition
Games in early years – e.g. find letters in the sand

6. Let’s explore the different Phases
Phase 1 = Rhymes and songs …. Nursery
Phase 2 = s a t p i n ….. Reception, Yr 1
Phase 3 = basic (most common)
Phase 4-5 = increasingly complex patterns
Phase 6 = recap of all sounds plus other patterns … Year 2

7. Segmenting and blending
c a t
sh o p
s l igh t

8. Let’s have a go at listening for the sounds and writing them!
We are going to explore the “ay” sound.
We will look at 3 different ways of spelling this sound.
On your whiteboards write
ay ai a-e
Use these words: day, tray, train, plane, afraid, game, can you think of others?

9. and what about syllables ….?
Hold up fingers to show the syllables in these words : dandelion (4), shoe (1), cardigan (3), lego (2) hippopotamus (5)

10. Alien words
Using

11. The year 1 phonics test Takes place during 1 week in June
Children are tested individually by class teacher
Includes real and alien words
Children are well prepared! It’s not scary!!
40 questions. Children need to score around 32 or more to pass

12. Helping your child at home
Read with them and to them (you are the Reading Expert)
Help with anything tricky (it’s not a test!)
Talk about the story, the pictures, what might happen next
Games …. Such as Phonics Play which is free