1. Letters and Sounds Information Session
Welcome
Letters and Sounds Information Session
2014

2. LETTERS AND SOUNDS
Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007.
It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills.

3. (hearing and saying sounds)
What’s it all about?
Phonics at a glance
Phonics is…
Skills of
segmentation and
Blending
(hearing and saying sounds)
Knowledge of
the alphabetic
code.
Phonics Consists of:
• Identifying sounds in spoken words
• Learning the Letter Sounds.
• Blending phonemes (letter sounds) into words for reading.
• Segmenting words into phonemes(letter sounds) for spelling.
Learning tricky words – words that are not decodable.

4. t ai igh SOME dEFINITIONS
A phoneme (We refer to these as the letter Sounds)
This is the smallest unit of sound in a
word.
How many phonemes can you hear in cat?
A grapheme (we refer to these as the sound buttons or the letters that make the sound)
These are the letters that represent the phoneme.
The grapheme could be 1 letter, 2 letters or more! We refer to these as sound buttons.
t ai igh
CVC words e.g cat CCVC words e.g trap CVCC words e.g must

5. (Pre-school/Foundation)
Phase 1
(Pre-school/Foundation)
* Showing an awareness of rhyme and
alliteration.
* Distinguishing between sounds in the environment.
* Exploring and experimenting with sounds
and words.
*Discriminating speech sounds in words.
* Beginning to orally blend and segment
phonemes (hear and say each sound in words).

6. Phase 1 – At home Singing nursery rhymes
Sharing and talking about stories/rhymes/poems and songs
Listening out for different sounds in the environment
Alliteration- Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled pepper, Harry Hamster has a hat etc
Playing what’s in the box or bag- to distinguish between different initial letter sounds
Playing ‘Sound / Robot talk game- eg I spy a c-a-t
Using sound talk in daily routine- eg Can you find your s-o-ck?, Can you pass me the f-or-k?
Playing Simon Says- using sound talk

7. Phase 2 (Foundation Stage) Blending for reading and segmenting for
spelling.
Continue to practise sound talk.
Learning the first letter sounds.
Learning to read and write simple *VC and CV words then CVC words eg. at, is, to, sat, sip etc
Beginning to learn the tricky words.
* V- Vowel C- Consonant

8. Set 1 - s, a, t, p, Set 2 - l, n, m, d, Set 3 - g, o, c, k,
Phase 2 Letter Sets
Set 1 - s, a, t, p,
Set 2 - l, n, m, d,
Set 3 - g, o, c, k,
Set 4 - ck, e, u, r,
Set 5 - h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

9. (Blending for reading)
Sound Buttons
(Blending for reading)
• Recognising the letter sounds in a written word e.g c-u-p sh-ee-p.
• Merging them into the correct order to
pronounce the word cup and sheep.
cup
sheep

10. Segmenting (for spelling)
• Hear and say (sound talk) the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m, s-t-or-k) and writing down letters for each sound (phoneme) to form the word him and stork.
Encourage children to hear the sounds and write these eg
woz sed frends

11. High Frequency Words Tricky Words
• Words that are decodable can be sounded out eg. dad, mum, did
Should become sight words
Tricky Words
• Words that cannot be sounded out eg. the, to, I, said, they, to, go, my
Need to be able to read them on sight.
Important to practice regularly.

12. Phase 2 – At home Play online games Spelling and Reading
Magnetic Letters to support recognition of sounds
Make little words together- eg it, up, am top, dig, am, run. As you select the letter sounds say them aloud ‘a-m’- am, ‘m-e-t- met’
Continue practising ‘Sound Talk’.
Model sounding out words in reading books and support children to do this by pointing to each letter sound (blending for reading). Eg cat, sit
Play online games

13. (Foundation plus revision in Year 1)
Phase 3
(Foundation plus revision in Year 1)
The purpose of this phase is to:
teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat
practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
Learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly- alphabet song
Read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them read and write words in phrases and sentences.

14. Phase 3 Letter Sets Set 6 – j, v, w, x Set 7- y, z, zz, qu
ch, sh, th, ng
ear, air, ure, er, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ai, ee, igh, oa,
oo- long and short

15. Phase 3 – At Home Sing an alphabet song together.
Play ‘I spy’, using letter names as well as sounds.
Continue to play with magnetic letters, using some of the two grapheme (letter) combinations:
blending for reading segmenting for spelling
r-ai-n = rain rain = r-ai-n
b-oa-t = boat boat = b-oa-t
h-ur-t = hurt hurt = h-ur-t
Praise your child for trying out words.
Continue to practise reading and spelling the tricky words.
Play games to support reading and writing.

16. (end of Foundation continuing into Year 1)
Phase 4
(end of Foundation continuing into Year 1)
Consolidation unit. There are no new graphemes to learn. Continue to revise the previously taught letter sounds.
Reading and spelling of tricky words continues.
• Segmenting and spelling and reading more complex words e.g. went, frog, stand, shrink, jumps

17. (Throughout Year 1 with some revision in Year 2)
Phase 5
(Throughout Year 1 with some revision in Year 2)
Using alternative ways of pronouncing and spelling the graphemes corresponding to the long vowel phonemes.
Spelling more complex words using phonetically plausible attempts. For example, hows (house), shoo (shoe) sinemar (cinema)
Continue to revise previously taught letter sounds
Continue to learn tricky words and the High Frequency words- be able to read on sight and spell.

18. ea eat, oy boy, ir girl, ue blue, aw saw, wh when, ph photo,
Phase 5 Letter Sets
ay day, ou out, ie tie,
ea eat, oy boy, ir girl, ue blue, aw saw,
wh when, ph photo,
ew new, oe toe,
au Paul

19. Year 1 phonics screening
All children tested in the Summer Term.
Nonsense words are included and children should recognise these are not real words.
Results are sent out to parents in end of year reports.

20. Phase 6 or Support for spelling
(Year 2 throughout)
Focuses on spellings and learning all the spelling rules. (adding ed, ing)
With revision of Phase 5 Letter sounds
Spelling of all tricky words

21. Websites and Further ideas
Link to lots of printable resources!
word puzzles/games- Hangman, wordsearches, finding words within words, pairs games
Reading- books, comics, poems, songs etc
Supporting children with spelling- modelling
Have Fun!