2. Carry on doing what you’ve already been doing !!!
As parents and carers, you are your child’s first teachers. You have a powerful influence on your child’s early learning.
Carry on doing what you’ve already been doing !!!
Add personal experiences as an e.g.

3. Take time to look together at the words and pictures in a story.
Use your hands and face as well as your voice – your child will love to see you smiling.
Use animal sounds like woof, growl and hoot – this will really help to bring the story to life.
Stories and rhymes can be shared with the whole family so why not invite siblings or other family members to join in?
Don’t be shy, relax and enjoy – if you are having fun so will your child.

5. From a very early age, children develop an awareness of the different sounds in our spoken language(s).
They learn how to use their voices:
to make contact with you
to let you know what they need
to show how they are feeling
As parents and carers, you best understand your child’s communications; you are key in helping them to develop their speaking and listening skills.

6. What you can do: Talk to them! Model and expect good listening.
Encourage the understanding and use of new vocabulary.
Sing songs and rhymes and read poems, enjoying the rhyme and rhythm of words.
Read to your child regularly and develop their story language.

8. In school, we follow the Letters and Sounds programme
In school, we follow the Letters and Sounds programme. Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills which consists of six phases. In YR we aim to complete phases 1 to 4.

9. Phase 1 Phase 2 Set 1: s, a, t, p Set 2: i, n, m, d Set 3: g, o, c, k
Your child will be learning to:
Have fun with sounds
Listen carefully
Develop their vocabulary
Speak confidently to you, other adults and children
Tune into sounds
Listen and remember sounds
Talk about sounds
Understand that spoken words are made up of different sounds
Learn lots of different rhymes and hear rhyming words
Phase 2
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

10. Phase 4
This phase consolidates all the children have learnt in the previous phases.
Phase 3
Set 6: j, v, w, x
Set 7: y, z, zz, qu
Letter names
Consonant digraphs: ch, sh, th, ng
Vowel digraphs: ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

11. Moving through the phases in YR
We have already revisited Phase 1 which is generally delivered during Nursery
We are now beginning to formally learn the sounds in the English language
Phonics sessions are fun sessions involving lots of speaking, listening and games
Children will learn the phonemes (sounds) for a number of letters (graphemes)
They will also learn that some phonemes are made up of more than one letter,
eg: ‘ll’ as in b-e-ll
We use actions to help to remember the phonemes
Show Jolly phonics mnemonic cards

12. www.youtube.com Mr Thorne
Saying the sounds
Your child will be taught how to pronounce the sounds (phonemes) correctly to make blending easier
Sounds should be sustained where possible (eg, sss, mmm, fff)
If not, ‘uh’ sounds after consonants should be reduced where possible (eg, try to avoid saying ‘b-uh’, ‘c-uh’)
Mr Thorne
Model alphabet sounds

13. VC and CVC words C = consonant, V = vowel
VC words are those consisting of a vowel and then a consonant, eg: at, in, up
CVC words follow the pattern consonant, vowel, consonant, eg: cat, dog, pet
Words such as tick or bell also count as CVC words; although they contain four letters, they only have three sounds

14. Making words
Now the children will be seeing letters and words, as well as hearing them
They will be shown how to make whole words by:
Pushing magnetic letters together to form short (cvc) words
Reading short words on the board
Breaking up words into individual sounds

15. Blending: building words from sounds (phomenes) to read.
c a t
cat
qu ee n
queen
Model robot arms

16. Phase 3
The main individual letter phonemes have now been learnt, and children are reading CVC words independently
Phase 3 teaches children to learn the graphemes (written sounds), made up of more than one letter, eg: ‘oa’ as in boat
Your child will also learn all the letter names in the alphabet and how to form them correctly
Read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
Read and write words in phrases and sentences

17. How can I help? Sing an alphabet song together Play ‘I spy’
Continue to play with magnetic letters, using some two-grapheme (letter) combinations, eg: r-ai-n = rain blending for reading
rain = r-ai-n segmenting for spelling
Praise your child for trying out words
Ask for a list of tricky words
Create phonic games with a timer
Play pairs

18. Tricky words - Words that can’t be sounded out
Phase 3
he my
she you
we her
me they
be all
was are
Phase 2 I go no
the to

19. Not all children will learn at the same rate!
Your child should be supported whatever their rate of learning
There is a very close link between difficulty with phonics and hearing, so if your child is making progress more slowly than expected, it is worth having their hearing checked.

20. Reading at school Reading at home Rigby Star Guided Group Reading
Learning to blend sounds into words
Learning tricky words as a sight vocabulary
Reading at home
Word lists
Jelly & Bean, Oxford Reading Tree etc
Quiet place for reading
Playing reading games
Let them see you reading
Follow your child’s lead
Enjoyable shared experience!

22. Segmenting: breaking down words by sounds (phonemes) for spelling.
dog
d o g do
moon
m oo n

23. Writing at school Writing at home Mark making opportunities
Physical development for writing
Letter formation
Segmenting for writing
Tricky words
Encouraging independence
Writing at home
Let them see you writing and talk about what you are doing
Reinforce correct letter formation
Encourage a ‘froggy legs’ grip
Let them write the sounds they can hear in words
Praise all their efforts, it’s hard!

24. Resources
Mention sensible & silly words

26. Year 1 Phonics Test

27. Thanks!
Any questions?