Bishkek Presentation.

1. The shape and sounds of words:
getting children to ‘look with intent’.
Bob Obee Bishkek 2022

2. Early literacy approaches
- whole book
- phonics
- environment approach
phonograpix [-ics]
looking with intent …visualising…..

3. Quick quiz
How many sounds are there in English ?
How many characters are there in the English alphabet ?
How many consonant clusters are there in English ?
How many consonant clusters can occur both at beginning and end of Englis
h words ?
What is a digraph ?
Why have Upper Case letters increased in importance in the last years ?

4. Think time
 Why teach the alphabet?
 When to teach the alphabet?
 What can cause confusion with alphabet
teaching?
 Can we teach English spelling/decoding
systematically?

5. Alphabet at your peril
I is for _______________
X is for ________________
Peter Piper…
class/ environment alphabet

6. Early Literacy sequence
PHONOGRAPHIX [sound pictures]
] introduce most common sound pictures first.
single letter consonant pictures b p t d l m and most frequent single letter vowel pictures
a e etc..
move to consonant blends : st br etc ..
move to digraphs : sh ch
move to split vowel digraphs m a d e r i d e
…………………………………………………………………………………….. Grade 4
move to proper vowel digraphs : r ai n
make learners aware of initial mid- final position sound picture potential
st o p l o st
then present variation dog egg and overlap snow now

7. Teaching the English code
1. Introduce most common sound pictures in CVC words.
 single letter consonant pictures (b p t d l m)
 most frequent single letter vowel pictures (a e i o u)

8. Handwriting: letter shape focus

9. Sounding Listenin
g
Back-writing
Understanding
letter shape
Sounding
Writing
Off-page activity

10. D
r
s
Big small or same ?
Typin
g
Back-writing
Sounding
Big small same

11. consolidating post-activity task
different / yet reinforcing challenge from initial task

12. Teaching the English code
2. Introduce consonant blends (st, br, etc).

13. Teaching the English code
6. Make learners aware of initial mid- final position sound
picture potential.
st o p l o st

14. Teaching the English code:
3 key skills
 blending
 segmenting
 phoneme manipulation

15. Sight words
 High frequency words.
12 sight words = 25% of what we read & write
100 sight words = 50% of what we read & write
300 sight words = 75% of what we read & write
 Many sight words are phonetically ‘irregular’.
Most of the top 100 words come from ‘Old English’ roots
.
wh- kn- -gh -igh -aw -ow

16. Sight words
• you there it which
• are what or

17. • you there it which
• are or

18. Teaching the English code
3. Introduce digraphs (sh, ch, etc).

19. simple techniques
• overwriting directional letter writing
• airwriting backwriting sound typing
• ascending/descending letters
• letter change dictation making string letters

20. meaning….
• igh
• day
• low
• wrong
• surrender
• heavy

21. Letter shape
 overwriting (tracing) – traffic lights
 back writing – air writing – sound typing
 ascending/descending letters (letter gym)
 letter change dictation
 making letters (string, sand or plasticine)

22. Word shape
- Sticks and tails
- Sight-words
- Visualising patterns [keeping words together
- Words within words / word pictures
- Visualising gsmes

23. Word shape
Above the line b d h k l t
Below the line g j p q y f
On the line letters a c e i m n o r s u v w x z

24. Word Pictures
Remembering double letters
um…
ba…
gir…
Display / classroom envrionment

25. Visualising – words within words
 Highlight an animal in ‘education’.
 Highlight a type of metal in ‘environment’.
 Highlight the final part in ‘friend’’.
 Highlight a part of the body in ‘learn’.
 Highlight a three-letter verb in ‘because’.

26. Interactive Gaming
Up the level
shopping trolley
pass the pattern

27. Spelling patterns [as we progress]

28. Variation

29. sound /k/ of the week
Frequency
 duck
 kitten
 queen
 school
 cat
 Cat
 Kitten
 duck
 school
 queen

30. sound /i:/ of the week
Frequency
 tree
 key
 me
 pony
 beach
 me
 beach
 tree
 key
 pony

31. Whole child
whole books
emotional needs
emergent literacies,
cognitive abilities
citizenship
emergent cultural identity and understanding [print
around us]

32. ‘Whole child’ literacy
 get learners into the habit of ‘looking with intent’
 point out that print is all around them
 take an interest in words as you read
 encourage students to take mental photos of words
in their mind
 get students to write down words and see if it looks
right
 be multi-sensory

33. Some references
THRASS
Read America Sheila Mcguiness
MaxLab Georgetown
Spelling Blog
Jo Sterling Spelling

34. Early Literacy sequence
PHONOGRAPHIX [sound pictures]
] introduce most common sound pictures first.
single letter consonant pictures b p t d l m and most frequent single letter vowel pictures
a e etc..
move to consonant blends : st br etc ..
move to digraphs : sh ch
move to split vowel digraphs m a d e r i d e
…………………………………………………………………………………….. Grade 4
move to proper vowel digraphs : r ai n
make learners aware of initial mid- final position sound picture potential
st o p l o st
then present variation dog egg and overlap snow now

36. Range of genre types / range of tasks for interacting with text
s
Year 4

37. Year 5

38. Underlying approach
YLE Tests
• Tasks are intended to test the
meaningful use of language in
clear, relevant, accessible
contexts
I-Wonder series
• Teaching tasks engage [teach]
through the meaningful use of
language in clear, relevant,
accessible contexts, inspired by
the broader curriculum.

39. Starters Speaking
YLE Starters Test I-Wonder
Examiner: What’s this?
Candidate: It’s s frog.
Examiner: Put the frog next to the clock.
meaningful use
clear, relevant, accessible contexts
meaningful use
clear, relevant, accessible contexts
contexts drawn from the wider subject curriculum
critical thinking skills
full coverage of YLE Vocabulary and Structure lists

40. Movers Speaking
YLE Tests I-Wonder
Examiner: Which one is different? Why?
Candidate: This one. This boy is swimming but these people are
washing.
Target skills: interpreting visual information
describing pictures
justifying answers
Target skills: interpreting visual information
describing pictures
justifying answers
applying real world knowledge

41. Flyers Speaking
YLE Tests
I-Wonder
Target skills
Describing simple actions
Describing location
Describing simple feelings
Giving simple reasons and explanations
I-Wonder provides and teaching platform for all of the above through a multi-media
serialisation that integrates Listening and Reading comprehension tasks with empathy,
retelling and other story tasks.

42. Starters and Movers Reading and Writing
• A key feature of I-Wonder is its systematic ‘early literacy’ work, targeting features such as letter
shape, word shape, sight-words, double letters, spelling patterns, sounds and spellings

43. Starters and Movers Reading and Writing
YLE Tests
I-Wonder
Strong grounding in these skills is developed in I-Wonder
through teaching word and spellings strategies throughout
the series. These include:
visualisation mnemonics phonographix
highlighting
word within a word same sound/word different
spelling
Knowledge of words and spelling , productive lexical knowledge

44. Movers and Flyers Reading and Writing
YLE Tests
• evaluating responses in terms of meaning, grammar, sense and functional
appropriacy
I-Wonder
finding words that fit lexically and grammatically
rich and varied range of language and integrated skills tasks that serve as a
platform for developing these skills

45. Levels of attainment
I-W 1 I-W 2 I-W 3 I- W 4 I-W 5 I-W 6
Working towards Starters Attaining Starters Attaining Movers Working towards
Flyers
Attaining
Flyers
Attaining Preliminary
Starters vocabulary and structures list Movers vocabulary and
structures list
Flyers vocabulary and structures list B1 Threshold documents