1. Phonics Meeting
Aboyne Lodge

2. Children need to learn to read, before they can read to learn.
At Aboyne Lodge we use a systematic phonics programme called ‘Letters and Sounds’.
Alongside this programme, we use the ‘Jolly Phonics’ actions and songs.
In Reception we have a daily phonics session of approximately minutes.

3. At Aboyne Lodge we…
Start by sending home books with no words and character names/pictures.
When children begin to read CVC words (sat), we start sending home books with words. Children then work through our school scheme at their own pace.
We also send home small green books, containing the sounds we have covered during the week. Please practise these at home with your child. The quicker they can say the sounds, the better. Please make sure these are kept in book bags. I will take them out each Thursday ready to stick the new sounds in and they will be returned on Fridays.
In their wallet your child will also bring home flashcards, with sounds. These can be used to play games and build words ready for spelling.

4. Phonics Terminology
Phoneme – is a sound you can hear. There are approximately 44 phonemes in the English language. Phonemes are put together to make words.
Grapheme – a phoneme when it is written down. Graphemes can be made up of 1 letter ‘a’, 2 letters ‘sh’ (digraph) or i-e (split digraph), 3 letters ‘igh’ (trigraph)
Blending – reading a word by putting the graphemes together. I see the word cat, I recognise the graphemes c-a-t and I can blend the phonemes and hear the word says cat.
Segmenting – the skill needed to write a word, hearing all the phonemes in a word. I want to write cat and I can segment the word and hear I need c-a-t.
Sound buttons – we add these to words, to help the children with segmenting to read.

5. ‘Letter and Sounds’ - Order:
Phase 1 is covered during nursery
Phase 2, 3 and 4 are covered during Reception
Phase 5 is covered throughout Year One
In Year 2 we look at spelling patterns which then continues throughout the school.
This is the general order but there is always flexibility depending on children’s needs.
Phase Four
No new phonemes but blending eg. brown, clap, jump (short and long vowels)
Phase Two
1. s a t p
2. i n m d
3. g o c k
4. ck e u r
5. h b f ff l ll ss
Phase Three
6. j v w x
7. y z zz qu
Then:
ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

6. Year 1 - Phase Five
The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way. At the end of Reception and into Year 1, the children learn alternative graphemes.
rain say cake
light tie time sky
cat kennel choir
Some graphemes also have alternative pronunciations.
c – cat and cent g – get and giant ow – cow and blow

7. It is important that each phoneme is pronounced clearly and without a ‘uh’ on the end.
Mr Thorne has lots of videos on YouTube to help with pronunciation.
Articulating Phonemes will help you with Phase 3.
We teach the children the sound each alphabet letter makes. Alongside this we teach them the name of each letter. In order to begin reading phonetically, the children need to sound out the words they are reading.

8. Tricky Words Phase Five:
These are words that we can not sound out.
The children just need to know how to read these words.
We teach these as we work through the phases. They are reinforced in the Biff and Chip (Oxford Reading Tree) books which your child will bring home alongside a phonics book.
These words will come home in the green book plastic wallets, individually paced for each child over the next half term.
To start with children need to be able to read these words. Then they learn to spell them.
Phase Five:
oh, their, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, could
Phase Two:
the, no, to, go, into, I
Phase Three:
he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, they, her, all, are
Phase Four:
said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do, when, out, what

9. What happens in Reception:
We have a focussed phonics session each day for minutes, normally after lunch.
We make learning as multisensory and active as possible, as we know this is how children learn best.
Through child initiated play the children have access to a range of interactive reading, writing and phonics based activities.
We listen to the children read individually at least once a week.
We share a class story at least once a day.
We do small group literacy-based activities each week.

10. Our School reading scheme
Progression:
Grey stage – really important to develop understanding of the structure of a story and picture cues. Most of these books are without words, some are sound ‘Eye Spy’ books.
Pink stage – blending cvc words with short vowels for example, pat, cat, sat
Red stage – starting to use consonant clusters (sh, ch, th, ng) – first time children are using two letters to make one sound.
Yellow stage – Phase 3 long vowel sounds (eg ee, igh, ai)
Blue stage – Phase 4 (ccvc words eg jump, clap, brown)
Green stage – Phase 5 (alternative spellings of the phonemes eg ea, ie, ay)
After this, the main focus is on reading comprehension.

11. Our School reading scheme
The phonics books have been split into 3 stages of difficulty (ie pink 1.1, pink 1.2, pink 1.3). This provides a very focussed progression through the levels up to Orange stickers after which is it not applicable.
As well as the phonics books we give children an Oxford Reading Tree book. These ensure repetitive exposure to the high frequency / common exception words (these are not sub-divided into levels and do not have any numbers on them).

12. What can you do to support your child at home?
Read at home with your child. Little and often is best but we expect at least 5 times a week. Talk about the pictures, how characters are feeling, make predictions etc.
Practise the sounds your child brings home in their green book. Learn the action together and if your child would like to, practise forming each letter correctly (see Read Write Inc sheets for the rhymes).
Practise the high frequency words in your child’s wallet.
Play games: Eg Eye Spy, Snap, online games – eg Mr Thorne does Phonics, Phonics Play, Galactic Phonics (be careful of American apps).
Spot print in the environment.
Use magnetic letters on the fridge to build words.
Play snap with tricky words.
Continue reading to your child, so they can hear and discuss a wide range of books including non-fiction / magazines (St Albans Library)