1. Phonics and reading at Lovington C of E Primary School

2. Most important thing – from a very early age… Talking and Listening
Reading with and to your child
Playing listening games
Singing songs and rhymes
Simple movement games
Without background noise
All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

3. PHASE 1 General sound discrimination Environmental sounds
Instrumental sounds
Body percussion
Listening walks, drumming outdoors, matching sounds, action songs, “Noisy Neighbours”

4. Rhythm and rhyme
Rhyming books, “Silly Soup”, rhyming bingo, rhyming pairs, songs and rhymes, odd one out.
Alliteration
I spy names, making and naming aliens, Bertie the Bus.
Voice sounds
Mouth movements, Metal Mike, Whose voice?, sound lotto, animal sounds, singing songs.
Oral blending and segmenting
Toy talk, clapping sounds, “Cross the River”, I spy,

5. PHASE 2 PHONICS Correct pronunciation – ‘t’ not ‘tuh’
Correct vocabulary
We all need to use the same language at home and at school.
Little and often is the key. Does not have to be formal.
Link it to your child’s interests.

6. PHONEME
We concentrate on the sound a letter makes not the letter name. This sound is the phoneme.
The smallest unit of sound in a word.
There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

7. Order of the phonemes in Phase 2
s a t p
i n m d
g o c k
ck e u r
h b f l
ff ll ss

8. GRAPHEME Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh
Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

9. BLENDING Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example
c-u-p
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

10. SEGMENTING ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out
The opposite of blending
Use your fingers for each phoneme

11. Segment and Blend these words…
drep
blom
gris
Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

12. Once children are good with single phonemes…
DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound
ll ss zz oa ai
TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound
igh air

13. Segmenting Activity
Use your fingers to say how many phonemes in each word.
shelf
dress
sprint
string

14. 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

15. TRICKY WORDS Words that are not phonically decodeable e.g. was, the, I
Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodeable once we have learned the harder phonemes later on
e.g. out, there,

16. Letter formation
As the phonemes are introduced we talk about the shapes of the letters.
We also look at the letter formation and use mnemonics to help us remember.
Writing at this stage is in the air, on our bodies, in the mud, the shaving foam and sometimes on paper.

17. Phase 3
Once the children are secure with their phonic knowledge of Phase 2 – assessment
More digraphs/trigraphs eg ur, ai, ear,igh
More challenging tricky words.

18. Word Pyramids
Key words found in front of reading books in Phases for you to help your child practice- a sight vocabulary
Regular reading- in different orders.
Turn into games- snap, pairs, find it

19. Reading Play lots of sound and listening games with your child.
Read as much as possible with your child.
Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’.
Does it sound right? Does it look right? Does that make sense?

20. Reading …continued Readers are writers!
Read to your child - a more difficult/variety of texts and talk about the new vocabulary, characters, storyline, information etc
Look at different punctuation
Make it fun!
Readers are writers!

21. Useful websites www.letters-and-sounds.com www.phonicsplay.co.uk
See handout