1. Teaching and Learning Phonics at RA Butler
Wednesday 28th November 2018 JC

2. Aims PT To share how phonics is taught.
To develop parents’ confidence in helping their children with phonics and reading
To teach the basics of phonics and some useful phonics terms
To outline the different stages in phonic development
To show examples of activities and resources we use to teach phonics PT

3. Letters and Sounds
A high quality phonics resource produced and recommended by the government
Takes account of the best practice seen in the most successful early years settings and schools. PT

4. Why teach phonics? PT
The ability to read and write well is a vital skill for all children, paving the way for an enjoyable and successful school experience.
Phonics helps children to develop good reading and spelling skills
e.g. cat can be sounded out for reading and spelling

5. + Phonics is all about using … skills for reading and spelling
Segmenting and blending
knowledge of the alphabet + AK
Learning phonics will help your child to become a good reader and writer.

6. Daily Phonics Sessions with their class teacherAK
Every child in FS2 and KS1 learns daily phonics with their class teacher.
Phonics gradually progresses to learning spellings – rules etc.
Every day the children have 20 minute sessions of phonics with their class teacher.
•Pitched high with a high level of challenge included
It is a fast paced approach
Lessons encompass a range of games, songs and rhymes
Support and interventions put in place quickly to support those children who are not keeping pace with the class (take place in the afternoon)
We use the Letters and Sounds planning document to support the teaching.
There are 6 phonics phases which the children work through

7. Phonic terms your child will learn at school
Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that are found within a word.
A phoneme is something you hear. AK
Phonemes -
How many phonemes can you hear in cat?

8. Grapheme: The spelling of the sound e.g. th
A grapheme is what you see
Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents. AK
The grapheme could be 1 letter, 2 letters or more! We often refer to these as sound buttons:
t ai igh
Demo on the flip chart using sound buttons

9. Digraph: Two letters that make one sound when read e.g. sh
Trigraphs: Three letters that make one sound e.g. igh
CVC: Stands for consonant, vowel, consonant e.g c a t
Tricky words: Words that cannot easily be decoded, sometimes referred to as ‘red’ words. AK

10. Sound buttons
Using ‘sound buttons’ can you say how many phonemes are in each word?
shelf
dress
sprint
string AK
Answers on next slide

11. 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 AK

12. Phase 1: Getting ready for phonics
Begun in pre-school but continued throughout EYFS & KS1
1. Tuning into sounds
2. Listening and remembering sounds
3. Talking about sounds PT
Will include activities such as:
Music and movement
Rhythm and rhyme
Sound effects
Speaking and listening skills
Add in here – list of some of the things you have already been doing

13. Phase 2: Learning phonemes to read and write simple words
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) PT
They will use these phonemes to read and spell simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC) words:
sat, tap, dig, duck, rug, puff, hill, his
All these words contain 3 phonemes but not necessarily 3 letters.

14. Saying the sounds PT
Sounds should be articulated clearly and precisely.
They should be pure sounds and not repeated.
Saying the sounds correctly with your child is extremely important
We refer to letters by the sound they make rather than the letter name to begin with (begins in phase 3)
The way we say sound may well be different from when you were at school
We say the shortest form of the sounds
Some sounds are short and some are stretchy e.g. b is a short bouncy sound, whereas f is a stretchy sound

15. Simple Speed Sounds chartPT
Read across whole chart

16. Segmenting and Blending
Children need to be able to hear a whole word and say every sound that they hear.
e.g. If the teacher says ‘dog’ the child should be able to say ‘d o g – dog’
Blending:
Children need to be able to hear the separate sounds in a word and then blend them together to say the whole word.
e.g. If the teacher says ‘c a t’ the child should be able to say ‘c a t – cat’ AW

17. Segmenting
bed = /b/ /e/ /d/
Blending:
/t/ /i/ /n/ = tin AW

18. Phase 3: Learning the long vowel phonemes
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 phonemes (and the ones from Phase 2) to read and spell words:
chip, shop, thin, ring, pain, feet, night,
boat, boot, look, farm, fork, burn,
town, coin, dear, fair, sure AW
Children will enter phase 3 once they know the first 19 phonemes and can blend and segment to read and spell CVC words. (usually in EYFS)

19. Phase 4: Introducing consonant clusters: reading and spelling words with four or more phonemes
Phase 4 doesn’t introduce any new phonemes.
It focuses on reading and spelling longer words with the phonemes they already know. CCVC (black), CCCVC (strong), CVCC (felt), CCVCC (blend) AW
Children move into phase 4 when they know all the phonemes from phases 2 and 3 and can use them to read and spell simple words (blending to read and segmenting to spell). (usually in EYFS)

20. Structure of a typical lesson
Revisit/Review
Teach
Practise
Apply AK
Revisit/Review - practise previously learned graphemes
Teach - Teach new graphemes; Teach tricky words
Practise - Practise blending and reading words with the new GPC. Practice segmenting and spelling words with the new GPC
Apply - Read or write a sentence using one or more HF words and words containing new graphemes.

21. Typical Phase 2 lesson videoPT
Revisit/Review
Recap previously taught phonemes
Teach
Teach new grapheme
Teach tricky words
Practise
Practise blending/reading words and segmenting/spelling words with the new GPC (Grapheme Phoneme correspondence)
Apply
Read a sentence using one or more high frequency words and words containing new grapheme.

22. A typical week in Phase 2 PT

23. Letter Formation Children
At RAB we have adopted a pre-cursive handwriting approach. This means the children in reception will learn that each letter starts from the line with a ‘whoosh’ and ends with a hook. AK
Children

24. Is there anything I can do at home?JC

25. At home... Read everyday with your child if possible
Help your child practise their reading words (EYFS)
Help your child practise their spellings (these sheets do not need to come back to school)
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
Look at tricky words
Look for phonic games online
Play pairs with words and pictures JC

26. Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents.
Don’t forget…
Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents. JC

27. Any questions?