1. Finding Out About Phonics Workshop for Parents

2. Objectives To understand why we teach phonics.
To understand how phonics is taught at St. Mary’s.
To understand how phonics links in with the reading curriculum.
To understand how you can support your child in their learning of phonics.

3. The Reading Curriculum
Phonics and the development of decoding skills
Shared reading – use of shared texts to model reading strategies
Guided reading – sharp focus on needs of a particular group
Independent reading (individual, paired) –developing range of choice and experience opportunities to select own choice of texts- independence/motivation
Stories – hearing books read aloud
Family involvement in reading

4. What is Phonics? Skills of segmentation and blending
Knowledge of the Alphabetic Code

5. Letters and Sounds
In school, we follow the Letters and Sounds programme.
This is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills which consists of six phases.
Taught daily in 20 minute sessions that are fun, interactive and multi-sensory.
Children are taught to separate sounds within words as well as blend sounds together.

6. So What Does a Phonics Session Look Like?
Revisit and Review
Practise previously learned letters
Practise oral blending and segmentation
Teach
Teach a new letter with an action
Teach blending and/or segmentation with letters
Practise
Practise reading and/or spelling words with the new letter
Apply
Read or write a caption (with the teacher) using one or more high-frequency words and words containing the new letter
Assess learning against criteria

7. A Few Technical Terms… Phoneme
Smallest unit of sound you can hear in a word.
Can be represented in more than one way:
e.g. cat, kennel, Christmas, quack
Grapheme
The letters that represent the phoneme.
Can be 1, 2, 3 or more letters (e.g. ough)

8. Begins in the Reception Year
Phase 2
Begins in the Reception Year
Children will learn their first 19 phonemes:
Set 1: s a t p
Set 2: i n m d
Set 3: g o c k
Set 4: ck (as in duck) e u r
Set 5: h b l f ff (as in puff) ll (as in hill) ss (as in hiss)
They will use these phonemes to read and spell simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC) words:
c-a-t cat

9. Phase 3 Started in Reception.
Children will enter phase 3 once they know the first 19 phonemes and can blend and segment to read and spell CVC words.
They will learn another 26 phonemes:
j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu
ch, sh, th, ng,
ai, ee, igh, oa,
oo, ar, or, ur,
ow, oi, ear, air,
ure, er
They will use these to read and spell words such as:
chip, rain and sing.

10. How Many Sounds are in these Words?
Dad
night . . . . .
toast
crayon . . . . . . .
jumper . . . .

11. Phase 4 No new sounds are introduced.
Children enter this phase when they know most of the Phase 2 and 3 sounds and can use them to read and spell simple words.
Reading and writing longer words using sounds they already know:
clap green
tent burnt
spend trust

12. Phase 5 Teach new graphemes for reading:
ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au,
a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e
Learn alternative pronunciations of graphemes (the same grapheme can represent more than one phoneme):
Fin/find hot/cold cat/cent got/giant
but/put cow/blow tie/field eat/bread
farmer/her hat/what
yes/by/very chin/school/chef out/shoulder/could/you

13. Tricky Words
There are many words that cannot be blended or segmented because they are irregular.
the was said you some
These are split into the 6 phases too and are taught alongside the sounds.
Children develop their own ways of remembering these, but one way can be through the use of mnemonic.

14. The Importance of Correct Articulation of Sounds
Although there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, there are more than 40 speech sounds.

15. Not all Children will Learn at the Same Rate!
Your child will 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.

16. How can I Help? Read together regularly
Play word games e.g. Tricky word hunt
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
Praise your child for trying out words
Play pairs with words
Write sounds in sand, shaving foam and play dough
Write cards, shopping lists and s together

17. www.mrthorne.com www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.sentenceplay.co.uk
Some Useful Websites: