1. Welcome to our Reading and Phonics Evening 30 th September 2015

2. The Power of Reading! Creating a love of reading in children is potentially one of the most powerful ways of improving academic standards in school. There can be few better ways to improve pupils chances in school, or beyond in the wider world than to enable them to become truly independent readers.

3. Reading Success in reading is fundamental to success in school. Reading is all about acquiring meaning; for enjoyment, information and understanding.

4. Reading requires two skills Phonics and Word Recognition The ability to recognise words presented in and out of context. The ability to blend letter sounds (phonemes) together to read words. Understanding The ability to understand the meaning of the words and sentences in a text. The ability to understand the ideas, information and themes.

5. Understanding (Comprehension) Being able to read words does not mean you understand what you read. Your child might sound like a good reader but may not necessarily understand what the text means. The best way to develop understanding is to talk about texts. Please see handout with suggested questions. The next slide is easy to read but do you understand what it means?

6. An extract taken from a computer manual According to the previous ATA/IDE hard drive transfer protocol, the signalling way to send data was in synchronous strobe mode by using the rising edge of the strobe signal. The faster strobe rate increases EMI, which cannot be eliminated by the standard 40-pin cable used by ATA and ultra ATA.

7. Why Phonics? Phonics teaches children to be able to listen carefully and identify the sounds that make up each word. This helps children to learn to read words and to spell words. Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to crack the code.

8. Vocabulary A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. E.g. tai igh A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. Written representation of a sound which may consist of 1 or more letters eg. The phoneme ‘s’ can be represented by the grapheme s (sun), se (mouse), c (city), sc or ce (science)

9. Vocabulary A digraph is two letters, which make one sound. A consonant digraph contains two consonants shthckll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel aieearoy A split digraph is a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make) A trigraph is three letters, which make one sound. E.g. igh dge

10. How to say the sounds Saying the sounds correctly with your child is extremely important Sounds should be pronounced softly and in a clipped, short manner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v- 1s

11. Skills used in phonics Blending for reading Merging phonemes together to pronounce a word. In order to read an unfamiliar word, a child must link a phoneme to each letter or letter group in a word and then merge them together to say the word. sh – o – p t– ai - l

12. Segmentation for spelling Hearing individual phonemes within a word. E.g. crash has 4 phonemes c – r – a – sh In order to spell a word a child must segment a word into the individual phonemes and choose a letter or letter combination to represent the phonemes. For example a child may write: ‘The cat was blak. It had a wiet tayl and a pinc noas.’ ‘I bulong to Youcalaylee club!’ It is important that children understand that blending and segmenting are reversible.

13. Activities Metal Mike – Sound Talking Phoneme count Phoneme frame and sound buttons

14. Phase progression Phase 1 – preparing the ground (phonic awareness – listening, alliteration, oral blending and segmenting, learning letter names, rhythm and rhyme) Taught in Nursery but continued alongside all other phases especially Phase 2 in Reception. Phase 2 – knowledge of common consonants and vowels, blending and segmenting CVC words. Learning to read some tricky words. Phase 3 – Knowledge of one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes, blending and segmenting CVC words. Learning to read and spell tricky words. Phase 4 – Blending and segmenting longer words with previously learnt graphemes. Revision phase. Phase 5 – Learning alternative graphemes. Learning to spell and read tricky words. Phase 6 – Revision, consolidation, building fluency in reading. Focus on spelling (suffixes, past tense, spelling strategies – spelling tests)

15. High frequency and tricky words Alongside the teaching of phonics “tricky” high frequency words are not segmented but taught as whole words, recognised on sight. E.g. was, you, I Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodable once we have learned the harder phonemes. E.g. out, there.

16. Reading in School How do we teach reading? Daily Phonics (15-20mins) Shared reading Guided reading Independent reading Personal reading Focused reading activities Reading across the curriculum Class novels and stories

17. Phonics Screening check – Year 1 This is a statutory assessment for all children in Year 1 It will take place towards the end of the Summer Term. It is designed to confirm whether individual children have learned phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. The check consists of 40 words that the children read 1- 2-1 with the teacher. Some words are real and some are made-up or ‘alien’ words. “The check will be focused solely on decoding using phonics. The check will confirm individually whether pupils have learned phonic decoding to an appropriate standard by the end of Y1 and identify pupils who need additional support from their school to catch up.” Y1 Phonics Screening Check Framework for Pilot in 2011 (DfE)

18. How you can help? Please read to and with your child as often as you can. 10 minutes daily is recommended. When talking about letters please use the letter sounds and refer to video shown previously if you need to. Practise orally segmenting and blending whenever the opportunity arises, e.g. I spy with my little eye a b_u_s, fetch me your c_o_a_t. Encourage your child to look for print in the environment.

19. How you can help? Make duplicate sets of the phonemes and play pairs or snap with them. Practise the words or spellings that come home from school. Encourage the children to sound talk words when reading and writing. Model reading (read in front of them) – if children see the significant adults in their life reading they will see why it’s important and enjoyable. Our popular Wednesday reading mornings will resume after half-term.

20. Useful websites for Phonics www.phonicsplay.com http://www.letters-and-sounds.com http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ http://www.ictgames.co.uk/ http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/ And an Apple Store app that has come recommended by the Cambridgeshire literacy adviser is “Cambug”

21. Other good resources for using at home - Display an alphabet poster or chart in the kitchen. - Magnetic letters on the fridge. - Sound mats for use when writing. - A set of Flashcards of sounds for using in games. -Good quality story books and Non Fiction books.

22. Thank you so much for coming. Any Questions?