1. Phonics and Talk Time 3+
Aa to Zz alphabet letters linked to sounds
and the core phonics skills and sub-skills
for reading, spelling and handwriting
by Debbie Hepplewhite
Suitable for use in the home
and in nurseries, pre-schools
and pre-kindergartens.
Also suitable for use in schools
for young beginners when the
Roman alphabet is a different
script from the first language.
2. The PowerPoint Presentation
• Part 1: An introduction to Debbie Hepplewhite
and a look at the Simple View of Reading model
• Part 2: About the main content and guidance of the two
‘Phonics and Talk Time’ books to enable transparent review
• Part 3: What next after ‘Phonics and Talk Time’?
3. Part 1: An introduction to
Debbie Hepplewhite MBE FRSA
• Previously: primary teacher, headteacher, special needs teacher
Currently: teacher-trainer, consultant and writer
• Author of the online Phonics International programme for all ages and
contexts (Phonics International Ltd, 2007)
• Phonics consultant for the Oxford Reading Tree Floppy’s Phonics
Sounds and Letters infant programme (Oxford University Press, 2010)
• England: received MBE Queen’s Honours Award for
Services to Education (2012)
• Author of Phonics Training Online featuring Debbie’s ‘two-pronged
systematic and incidental phonics teaching and learning’ approach
(Phonics International Ltd, 2015)
• Author of the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme (Raintree, 2016)
• Author of Phonics and Talk Time (Phonics International Ltd, 2017)
4. The Simple View of Reading
To teach reading and for children to be
‘readers’ in the full sense
*We need to teach the letter/s-sound links
and the phonics sub-skills and blending skill
for the technical ability to read unknown print:
What ARE the words?
How do we decode print into spoken words?
*We need to develop children’s spoken language,
enrich their stock of words and build their
knowledge and understanding of the world:
What do the words MEAN?
5. Teaching reading, spelling and writing
To teach reading, spelling and writing:
1) Develop children’s spoken language to enrich their stock of words and
build up their knowledge and understanding of the world:
This is ‘cultural capital’ or ‘literacy capital’: Provide lots of high-quality
conversations and activities and plenty of ‘life’ and ‘book’ experience.
2) Teach explicitly and systematically the letter/s-sound links of the English
alphabetic code and the three core phonics skills and their sub-skills for
reading, spelling and writing.
6. Please note: Further teaching
• The Phonics and Talk Time books provide an introduction to the full range of letter
shapes of the alphabet linked to sounds (but not the full ‘alphabetic code’) along with
the three core phonics skills and sub-skills required to read, spell and write.
• Follow the Phonics and Talk Time books with a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP)
programme to teach the English alphabetic code comprehensively. This will introduce
many spelling alternatives for the 44+ sounds of speech (the letter groups such as sh,
th, ee, oa, igh and so on) and the pronunciation alternatives for various letters and
letter groups (for example, ea is pronounced differently in ‘eat’, ‘bread’ and ‘great’).
• In England, a full systematic synthetic phonics programme would ideally begin by the
time the children are four to five years old.
• To hear the full range of sounds and to note their spelling alternatives, see video:
https://phonicsinternational.com/new_hear_sounds.html
7. Part 2: The Phonics and Talk Time series:
Pre-school books 1 & 2
back cover
8. Content of the two Phonics and Talk Time books
The two books integrate both systematic, cumulative phonics content and language comprehension.
9. Guidance in the Phonics and Talk Time books
Full guidance is provided via the front cover notes and throughout the pages of both books.
12. Introducing both CAPITAL and lower case
letter shapes ‘as code for’ the same sounds
Characters’ names
exemplify capital letters.
Key picture-words
exemplify lower
case letter shapes.
Book 1 includes sub-skills and
full phonics skill for reading
with cumulative words.
Book 2 progresses to
include spelling with
writing, and reading
to sentence level.
14. Enjoy language play and language development
Book 2: Conversations are generated by themed pictures along with
further themed all-through-the-word reading and spelling activities.
Book 1: Recite and talk
about characters’ rhymes.
‘Let’s talk about...’ pictures
include phonemic awareness
activities for beginning sounds.
15. The key picture-words for the lower case letters
Sounds (phonemes) linked to
alphabet letter shapes:
Vowel sounds shown in red
letters within the slash marks:
/a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/
Consonant sounds shown in blue
letters within the slash marks:
e.g. /b/ /k/ /l/ /r/ /s/
Try not to add “…uh” on the
end of the consonant sounds:
e.g. s pronounced “sss” not “suh”
16. Oral blending of any sounds
‘Phonemic awareness’ = tuning into the smallest sounds of speech
The child’s ‘ear’ is tuned into any sounds (phonemes) with activities of oral blending (reading
sub-skill) and oral segmenting (spelling sub-skill).
Book 1 features lots of practice of oral blending – a sub-skill of reading (decoding).
17. Oral blending & oral segmenting of any sounds
Book 2 features lots of practice of oral blending – a sub-skill of reading (decoding)
alternating with oral segmenting – a sub-skill of spelling, and full spelling (encoding).
Identify the sounds all through the picture
words and then allot letters for each sound.
18. How is it best to use these books?
Complete and repeat
Like any early years favourite alphabet books, use over and over again.
Keep copies in the book corner to browse constantly - this is important.
In addition, children need their own copies to complete and repeat.
The repetition is key to effective learning of alphabetic code knowledge and phonics skills.
Please note:
The books are produced in very high quality
card and paper for durability and longevity!
19. Teaching letter groups as code for the sounds
‘incidentally’ – drip-feeding how reading works
The Phonics and Talk Time books introduce the single letters of the alphabet as code for the
sounds of speech – not letter groups such as sh and ch (the exception is qu as code for /kw/).
You can point out any letter groups ‘incidentally’ – including in children’s names and story books.
20. Part 3: What next after ‘Phonics and Talk Time’?
If you would like to investigate Debbie’s wide range of FREE RESOURCES and
her full systematic synthetic phonics programmes and training, please visit:
www.phonicsintervention.org
There you can see transparent review of Debbie’s No Nonsense Phonics Skills
programme which is produced in ‘hard copy’ books + USB stick with extra
resources. You will also find electronic links to Debbie’s online Phonics
International programme for all ages – and Oxford Reading Tree Floppy’s
Phonics Sounds and Letters programme for infants.
For more information, see next slides:
21. No Nonsense Phonics Skills
for reading, spelling, handwriting,
and language comprehension
by Debbie Hepplewhite
Starter Kit
6 sets of 9 Pupil Books, 9 Teacher Books, 6 mini Alphabetic Code Charts, USB Stick with extra resources
23. Suitable for:
• Mainstream teaching in whole classes or groups
• Targeted support for speeding up and consolidating learning
• Intervention when learners have specific individual needs
• Individual provision – tutoring, working in partnership with
parents or carers, home education
• English speakers
• Teaching English as a new or additional language
24. Question: How can the books be suitable for all learners?
Answer: They all need to learn the same alphabetic code
and the same phonics skills for lifelong reading and spelling!
Order of introducing the alphabetic code
in the No Nonsense Phonics Skills books
Rationalising the units of sound and their many
spelling alternatives as an ‘Alphabetic Code Chart’
25. Main content of the 9 Pupil Books
‘Say the Sounds’
at the beginning
of every lesson
The Alphabetic Code
Building Up the Sounds and Graphemes
The Alphabetic Code Chart builds up
in chunks in the front of every Pupil Book.
Extra guidance on ‘post-its’ is provided.
26. Multi-skills Activities & Mini Story pages
Guidance on every page and
extra guidance in the Teacher Books
Working from code to cumulative words to cumulative, decodable texts is central to the programme.
27. Spelling Word Banks and
some additional activities
Spelling word bank activities feature throughout the programme.
28. 9 No Nonsense Phonics Skills Teacher Books
Full guidance is provided in the Teacher Books
for every parallel Pupil Book.
Comprehension question suggestions provided
for all the 109 Mini Stories in the Pupil Books.
Full Teaching and
Learning Cycle for
Books 1 to 9.
29. Starter Kit USB Stick:
Full range of supplementary resources
Additional guidance, video footage,
comprehensive range of extra resources
sample pages
30. Features of the programme’s rationale
1. Research-informed Systematic Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles
2. Distinguishes between the Alphabet and the Alphabetic Code
3. Debbie’s ‘Two-pronged systematic and incidental phonics’ approach
for teaching and learning
4. Delivered through a content-rich Teaching and Learning Cycle:
Video footage and PowerPoint available at www.phonicsintervention.org
31. The Systematic Synthetic Phonics
Teaching Principles
http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Triangle_sub_core_skills.pdf
1. Systematically teach the KNOWLEDGE of
the letter/s-sound correspondences of
the alphabetic code and the three core
phonics SKILLS and their sub-skills.
2. Application: Use cumulative, decodable
words, sentences and texts for ample
practice.
3. Don’t teach, or promote, multi-cueing
reading strategies that amount to
guessing words from pictures, context or
initial letter cues as these detract from,
and dilute, the phonics application and
result in weak reading profiles.
For a very detailed free pdf, see:
32. To build on No Nonsense Phonics Skills
• For further resources to extend knowledge of the alphabetic code for
vocabulary, language development and Spelling Word Bank work, you
might wish to investigate Debbie’s Phonics International programme –
resources provided online for all ages and contexts, see:
www.phonicsinternational.com
• For more in-depth professional development for foundational reading
and spelling instruction and the ‘two-pronged systematic and
incidental phonics’ approach, investigate Debbie’s ‘Phonics Training
Online’ programme: www.phonicstrainingonline.com
• For FREE print and fully joined handwriting guidance and alphabet
resources, see: www.debbiehepplewhitehandwriting.com
33. Research and Reading Debate
• For research information and up-to-date commentary on
foundational literacy, the following three sites are highly
recommended:
• The UK Reading Reform Foundation (RRF) www.rrf.org.uk
• The International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction (IFERI)
www.iferi.org
• Susan Godsland’s award-winning site www.dyslexics.org.uk
Editor's Notes
This is an open access and free information and guidance PowerPoint for the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme created by Debbie Hepplewhite.
You can flick through the slides quickly to get an impression of the resources provided in the No Nonsense Phonics Skills Starter Kit, or if you require more information about the programme and guidance for use of the resources, you can read the accompanying notes and/or listen to the audio of the notes.
The PowerPoint notes are written by Debbie Hepplewhite.
If you’re listening to the audio, this is Debbie Hepplewhite speaking! Greetings – and thank you for your interest!
The PowerPoint presentation will enable transparent review of the programme’s rationale and resources, and also support teachers in assimilating the programme’s content and ways in which the material can be used most effectively according to various needs and contexts – whether English is the main language or a new or additional language – and whether for mainstream, for targeted support, or for intervention purposes.
This presentation can be used for professional development in the use of the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme and for information events for parents in schools.
The materials and guidance of the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme are designed for systematically teaching knowledge of the English alphabetic code and the technical skills required for reading, spelling and handwriting.
The programme is also designed to enrich children’s vocabulary and develop their language comprehension – and to build-up knowledge of spelling word banks consisting of words spelt with the same letter/s-sound correspondences.
This is not a literature or genre writing programme – it is more aptly described as supporting the explicit and systematic teaching of strong foundational literacy skills.
Now I’ll take you through a quick look at the core resources and supplementary resources for the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme and briefly describe their role.
The programme provides a comprehensive step-by-step method for teaching reading, handwriting and spelling. I guide [Debbie guides] the learner and the teacher through a series of carefully designed books that include all the phonics knowledge and routines necessary to master the complex English Alphabetic Code.
The Pupil Books include alphabetic code information and provide the terminology and ongoing guidance to support the teacher in instructing the pupils.
For every Pupil Book, there is a corresponding Teacher Book with information and guidance that is additional to the guidance for teachers provided within the Pupil Books.
The following slides show the main content of the Pupil Books.
At the beginning of each book, the first resource featured is a chart entitled: The Alphabetic Code – Building Up the Sounds and Graphemes. These cumulative charts include guidance for the supporting adult, and from Book 3, letter/s-sound correspondences are included in the charts beyond those introduced within each book systematically. The teacher can also add more graphemes if and when these arise incidentally. From Book 2, the three complexities of the English Alphabetic Code are described with examples provided, that is: one sound, or phoneme, can be represented by one, two, three or four letters; one sound can be represented by multiple spelling alternatives, or graphemes; and one grapheme can represent multiple sounds.
Say the Sounds posters, which are also cumulative, start to be included from Book 3 – see bottom right on the slide. This resource needs to be revisited at the beginning of every lesson to build up fluent automaticity of seeing the letters and letter groups introduced in the previous books, and saying the sounds in quick response. In reverse, the adult can say the sounds, but you may need to include an example word - such as /f/ as in ‘cliff’ - to clarify which spelling alternative you mean, and then the children can point to the correct grapheme on the page.
As some graphemes (that is the letters and letter groups) have various pronunciations dependent on specific words, small red numbers are sometimes added next to letters and letter groups to indicate to the learner that there may be more than one pronunciation alternative. This is all part of the teaching and learning about the complex English alphabetic code.
Throughout Books 1 to 8, a feature page for each letter/s-sound correspondence introduced systematically is entitled Multi-skills Activities. These core Multi-skills Activities pages alternate with matched Mini Story pages. In Book 9, the Multi-skills Activities pages are replaced by Spelling Word Banks for pronunciation alternatives and spelling alternatives. More about this later.
The Multi-skills Activities pages focus on the new code and the 3 core phonics skills and their sub-skills. Once children have practised the activities on the page independently, the teacher goes through the words in the cumulative word bank together with the children (sounding out and blending the words again collectively, and then starting again at the beginning of the word bank and saying the whole words together at a steady pace). The teacher then develops the children’s vocabulary by asking them to put some of the words in spoken sentences and also modelling the words in the context of spoken sentences as necessary. The teacher gives explanations for any new and unknown words in the cumulative word bank, and points out any homophones with their different meanings. If the children are learning the English language as a new language, the teacher can select just a couple of the most common words to explain and put in the context of simple sentences. It is fine for such children to sound out and blend words for which they do not know the meaning as they are gaining from practising their technical phonics knowledge and skills. The children can sometimes draw little sketches above nouns or verbs to help them recall new words – or sometimes act out new words.
The final activity for every Multi-skills Activities page is the ‘Encoding’ or full spelling activity which requires each child to have a phonics exercise books for writing the spellings provided by the teacher. The words are selected from the cumulative word bank and previous word banks. The teacher says each selected word aloud – slowly and naturally - for the children to orally segment – tallying the identified sounds on thumb and fingers of the left hand, palm facing. At first the teacher models this routine, then does it together with the children, and then asks the children to do it first and then check they have identified the correct number of sounds all-through-the-spoken-word. The children write the tallied number of sound dashes in their phonics exercise books, and then write the letters and letter groups on the sound dashes for the specific words. Treat the sound dashes as writing lines to encourage correct letter formation on the lines.
The same sub-headings are featured on every Multi-skills Activities page in the Pupil Books with the wording provided for simple instructions and routines intended to support the teacher and ensure continuity and consistency if different adults deliver the lessons. These sub-headings include: Learn the code; Link letter formation with sounds; Phonemic awareness puzzle; Decoding; Encoding; and Oral segmenting with spelling.
Then linked to these sub-headings, the Teacher Books provide further guidance for the teacher in how to conduct and model the routines as you can see on the right of this slide.
It is through the ‘decoding’ routines with the Say the Sounds posters, the Multi-skills Activities pages and Mini Stories that children are able to develop responsibility for their own progress by being trained to mark their own activities. In the Teacher Books, extra guidance for the Multi-skills Activities pages includes a description for this ‘Marking’ process. It states: “Engage pupils with a sense of their own learning. They sound out and tick in pencil the graphemes (that is, the letters and letter groups) they think they know. They also tick after sounding out and blending the whole printed words. They circle any decoded words where the meaning is not known. Teachers tick in pen the graphemes and printed words they hear sounded out correctly. Do not mark incorrect responses with a cross – simply leave blank any graphemes or words not known.”
If you are using this PowerPoint presentation as a training resource having already acquired the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme, I recommend that you now look at the Teacher Books and carefully read through the guidance provided for the Multi-skills Activities pages and for the phonics routines. In a school scenario, you could to do this with your colleagues. Please note that in Book 1, there is not a full spelling process for the pictures at the bottom of the pages. The activity is just oral segmenting to identify the sounds in the picture words and to practise tallying the sounds to thumb and fingers – and then to note how many sounds by writing sound dashes. This tallying process is a scaffolded sub-skill of spelling so please note that the picture words in Book 1 at the bottom of the pages are not intended to be spelt with actual letters.
By the way, the letter formation throughout the series is shown for print. If you require the children to learn a joined, or cursive, handwriting style, use one of the practice lines for print letter shapes and one for your preferred cursive style. Many schools start cursive fonts when children are four to five year olds. Personally I don’t recommend such early teaching of joined handwriting, not even as single letters with leader-joins. I suggest that Year 2 is a good time to start teaching joined handwriting – but my point is that it is not hard to use the existing lines provided to practise your preferred school style, or even your regional or country’s style if you are using this programme overseas.
The No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme includes various supplementary resources for main wall display, optional lesson introduction materials and tabletop resources. They can be printed and/or projected onto screens or walls as preferred and they can be printed out to create wall friezes, flash cards, browse books, posters and other permanent resources.
On the slide you can see some sample pages of the Giant Alphabetic Code Chart and the Giant Alphabet Poster with letter formation. There are sets of Frieze Cards for the alphabetic code introduced systematically in every Pupil Book which can also be used as flash cards and displayed in permanent ‘browse’ books. You can see a sample from the series of cumulative Say the Sounds Posters which can be used as posters used liberally around the room or building, as tabletop resources, as ongoing assessment resources and additional resources to keep at home.
There is also a range of Grouped Word Posters of common, useful words, tricky words and some incidental phonics.
There is a printable Mini Alphabet Poster showing letter formation linked to the key picture-words for tabletop and home use.
There are alphabet and code-based resources linked to the content of the nine Pupil Books to support teachers with entry-point assessment.
Correlation charts are provided to show the content of the No Nonsense Phonics Skills programme relative to England’s 2014 statutory National Curriculum for English and to the ’Letters and Sounds’ framework published by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007.
Additional guidance for use of the supplementary resources is also included via the USB Stick – and don’t forget there is some video footage including clips of the resources being trialled.