1. Teaching Phonics 21st September 2015

2. In 2006 the Rose Review made clear that:
“there are two dimensions to reading – ‘word recognition’ and ‘language comprehension”

3. So what is phonics?
Phonics is the teaching of the phonemes in the English language.
A “phoneme” is the smallest unit of sound represented by letters (“graphemes”).
Letter name: Aa = ‘ay’
Sound it makes: /a/

4. Understanding of the skills of segmenting and blending
Knowledge of the alphabetic code
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 44
(26 letters, 44 phonemes, 140 different letter combinations) +
Understanding of the skills of segmenting and blending

5. Letters: 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
44 phonemes: /s/ /a/ /t/ /p/ /i/ /n/ /m/ /d/ /g/ /o/ /c/ /e/ /u/ /r/ /h/ /b/ / f/ /j/ /v/ /w/ /x/ /y/ /z/ /qu/ /ch/ /sh/ /th/ /th/ /ng/ /ai/ /ee/ /igh/ /oa/ /oo/ /oo/ /ar/ /or/ /ur/ /air/ /ow/ /oi/ /ear/ /air/ /ure/ /er/

6. Phonemes /b/ /d/ /f/ /g/ /h/ /j/ /c/ /l/ /m/ /n/ /ng/ /p/ /r/ /s/ /t/
/v/
/w/
/y/
/z/
/th/
/ch/
/sh/
/zh/
/a/
/e/
/i/
/o/
/u/
/ai/
/ee/
/ie/
/oe/
/ue/
/oo/
/ar/
/ur/
/au/
/er/
/ow/
/oi/
/air/
/ear/
/ure/

7. GRAPHEME Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh
Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

8. 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’

9. Sound out and blend these words…
drep
blom
gris
Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

10. Segmenting Skill used for spelling words
Children listen carefully and identify sounds in words to help them spell
I Spy good game for hearing initial sounds in words
Other games to play are
Add a sound: what do I get if I add a p to ink?
Take away a sound: what do I get if I take away s from sink?

11. Segmenting Activity
Use your ‘robot arms’ to say how many phonemes in each word.
shelf
dress
sprint
string

12. Did you get it right? shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes
dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes
sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes
string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

13. Once children are good with single phonemes…
DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound
ch sh zz oa ai
TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound
igh ear air ure
CONSONANT BLENDS –
sp cl fr tr dr str

14. The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way

15. TRICKY WORDS Words that are not phonetically decodable
e.g. was, the, I
Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodable once we have learned the harder phonemes
e.g. out, there,

16. Handwriting

17. Tripod grip

18. Reading

19. Things to remember 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.
Link it to the children’s interests.

20. Phonics quiz
What is a phoneme?
How many phonemes are there the in spoken English language?
Write down at least four different ways of representing /ae/