1. Phonics Cheadle Primary School

2. The most important things
From a very early age it would be great if you could:
Talk to and listen to your child
Read with and to your child
Play listening games
Sing songs and rhymes
Play simple movement games
All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

3. Read this and then talk to the person next to you about what it means.
Маленькім дзецям знайсці чытання і пісьму цяжка. Гэта, як вы праглядаеце новы мову, які вы ніколі не бачылі раней. Літары могуць мець мала або не мае сэнсу. Сапраўды, лісты толькі формы на старонцы.
This is what reading is like for young children! We need to give them strategies and tools for being able to work out what it says.

4. The text was Belarusian and said:
Young children find reading and writing difficult. It is like you reading a new language that you have never seen before. The letters may have little or no meaning. Really, letters are just shapes on a page.

5. Phonics
This is the main strategy that we teach to help young children to begin to read and write.
It involves learning the 44 sounds in the English language.
We all need to use the same language at home and at school.
Little and often is the key. It does not have to be formal. Lots of games are great!

6. Vocabulary
Phoneme - the smallest unit of sound in a word. There are 44 phonemes in the English language.
Grapheme – how we write the sound.
Blending – saying the phonemes quickly one after the other to make a word.
Segmenting – opposite of blending. Saying the word slowly to hear each phoneme.

7. The 44 phonemes Important notes:
/b/
/d/
/f/
/g/
/h/
/j/
/k/
/l/
/m/
/n/
/ng/
/p/
/r/
/s/
/t/
/v/
/w/
/y/
/z/
/th/
/ch/
/sh/
/zh/
/a/
/e/
/i/
/o/
/u/
/ae/
/ee/
/ie/
/oe/
/ue/
/oo/
/ar/
/ur/
/au/
/er/
/ow/
/oi/
/air/
/ear/
/ure/
Important notes:
Learn lowercase letters before capitals (unless a capital is required i.e. for I or their name).
Remember to use speech sounds and NOT letter names (ay bee see dee). The reason for this is that blending words is practically impossible if you use the letter names. eg. cat, would sound like: see  ay  tee.

8. ‘Read Write Inc. Phonemes Pronunciation Guide DVD’
Correct pronunciation is a must. When saying the sounds of b, d, g, j and w you will notice the 'uh' sound which follows each, for example buh, duh. You must try not to add this onto the end.
For the correct pronunciation of the phonemes go to Youtube and search for
‘Read Write Inc. Phonemes Pronunciation Guide DVD’

9. Letters and Sounds
Your child will not learn all of these phonemes at once. At Cheadle Primary School we use the ‘Letters and Sounds’ scheme which is divided into phases. Your child will begin Phase 2 at the start of Reception and hopefully finish Phase 3 by the end.
Some children may not as it is important that they can read and write all of the Phase 2 sounds before moving onto Phase 3.
Phase 2 – s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, b, e, u, r, h, ck, f, l, ff, ll, ss
Phase 3 – j, v, w, x, y, wu, z, zz, ch, sh, th/th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo/oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
To teach these phonemes we use RWI flashcards and the rhymes that go with them i.e. a – round the apple and down the leaf. A list of these rhymes is included in the pack.
If you would like a set of flashcards for home (not compulsory!) then I will order some for you from Amazon (£7.81 per set).

10. Grapheme
These are the written letters representing a phoneme. There may be 1, 2 or 3 letters making up one grapheme:
c ai igh
Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents. They also need to be able to write the grapheme when the phoneme is said.

11. Reading How do we do it as adults?
Can you read these words?
Drep
Blom
Siktophonictroynickety
How did you do it?
Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

12. Blending Segmenting Used for reading. Also called ‘sounding out’.
Adult can say the individual phonemes or child can sound out the word in the book i.e. c-u-p. Child to say these together to form the word ‘cup’.
Segmenting
Used for writing/spelling. Opposite of blending.
Often we use our fingers as we say each phoneme to help us remember how many there are.
Children to say the individual phonemes in the word slowly to hear each and then say them/write them down.

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

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

15. Tricky words Children will learn a few of these in each phase.
They are 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
e.g. out, there
Phase 2 tricky words – I, to, the, no, go
Phase 3 tricky words – he, she, you, we, me, be, was, my, they, her, all, are

16. Now you have the knowledge….
Play lots of sound and listening games with your child. Use the ‘Phonics Games’ leaflet for ideas.
Read as much as possible to and with your child.
Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’, use sounding out (blending) and try to recognise tricky words.
Read at home every night and practise the flashcards in your child’s bag.
Remember that there are other skills your child needs to develop for reading, not just phonics. See the ‘Reading at Home’ sheet for ideas of questions.