2. Aim of this workshop:
To give parents a greater understanding of phonics,
To show how phonics is taught at Horndon,
To provide examples on how to support the learning of phonics,
To make parents aware of the assessment procedures regarding phonics,
To answer any questions you may have.

3. What is phonics?
Phonics helps to teach speakers of English to read and write by connecting the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k or ck spellings) and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of unknown words.

4. Important Vocabulary
Phoneme - the smallest unit of sound in a word.
Grapheme - the written form of a phoneme.
Digraph - two letters representing one sound.
Trigraph - a group of three letters representing one sound.
Split digraph - When a digraph is split by a consonant e.g. lake.

5. Building words from phonemes to read.
Blending
Building words from phonemes to read.
c a t
cat

6. Breaking down words for spelling.
Segmenting
Breaking down words for spelling.
cat
c a t

7. Dos and Don’ts Dos Don’ts Use the pure sound e.g. t.
Identify sound buttons in a word.
Praise your child for sounding out words.
Ask for help if you are unsure.
Don’ts
Add the ‘eh’ sound.
Just tell them phonically possible words.
Refer to a split digraph as a ‘magic e’.
Worry if you get confused.

8. How we teach phonics at Horndon
We use the Song of Sounds to teach the children the different graphemes they need to learn.
It is a multi-sensory approach with kinaesthetic, auditory and visual activities. Song is integral to the programme to help children remember every phoneme, a highly active approach with whole-body actions and lots of games to aid learning.
There is a song for both Year One and Reception to learn.

9. How to support your child
Online games such as Phonics Play.
Worksheets and games such as Snakes and Ladders.
Phonics Treasure Hunt
Matching cards - match the picture to the sound.
Countdown – How many sounds can you read in a certain time.

10. Finding various digraphs when reading. Play this as a game.
Have a selection of word cards with a picture bulldozer as well. Your child picks a word, and if they can read it, they keep it. If they cannot, it goes back into the pot. If they pull out the bulldozer, all their cards go back into the pot.
Before you start reading, pick a grapheme and the winner is the person who finds the most graphemes.
Use a scrapbook and collect graphemes e.g. if you buy cream, put the till receipt under ea.
Hide and seek – hide words around a room. Your children find and read them. Also hide word cards in sand, pasta or lentils for them to find and read.

11. Phonic assessments
Towards the end of Year One, children will complete the Phonics Screening Check. It is a list of real and alien words and the children need to sound them out accurately.