2. To help you to understand why we teach
phonics.
To help you understand the progression in
phonics teaching throughout the school.
To give you an understanding of how we teach
phonics.
To help you in supporting your child/children at
home.
Aims of the workshop
3. Why do we teach phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching children to read and
write quickly and skilfully.
They are taught how to:
Recognise the sounds that each individual letter
makes;
Identify the sounds that different combinations
of letters make, such as ‘sh’ or ‘ch’;
Blend these sounds together to make a word.
4. At school, the children will be
taught phonics following the
Letters and Sounds scheme.
The children will use language such
as phoneme and grapheme.
Not the letter names.
5. Phoneme
• A phoneme is the sound a letter makes.
• When we are reading cat or pin we sound
out using the phonemes:
c-a-t or p-i-n
6. Top tips!
• When you talk about sounds to your child, use the phonemes (the
letter sounds). The reason for this is that sounding out words is
practically impossible if you use the letter names: cat doesn’t sound
like ‘see-ay-tee’
• When saying the sounds of b, d, g, j and w and other letters, you
might notice the 'uh' sound which follows each (‘buh’, ‘duh’...). It’s
hard to say the sound without it but do try to emphasise the main
letter sound and avoid saying the ‘uh’ too much. In some letters,
avoid the ‘uh’ completely (say ‘mmm’ rather than ‘muh’ and ‘sss’, not
‘suh). This is to avoid your child spelling a word like cat and wanting
to add the ‘uh’ sound (c-u-a-t)
8. Grapheme
A grapheme is a ‘symbol’ of a phoneme.
It is a letter or group of letters representing a
sound and we use the letter names for this.
A one letter grapheme is the ‘c’ in cat.
A two letter grapheme is in leaf where the long
‘ee’ sound is represented by the grapheme ‘ea.’
A four letter grapheme is contained in through
where the letters ‘ough’ make the long ‘oo’
sound.
9. Activity
• Spot the graphemes with more than 1
letter representing a sound
(there may be more than one in the word)
leaf swish feel wicked
quick chick king night goat
floating show snowing
11. • Letters and Sounds is divided into six phases,
• Children in Year R, Year 1 and Year 2 have
daily phonics sessions
• Nursery – Phase 1
• Reception – Phase 2, 3, 4
• Year 1 – Phase 4, 5
• Year 2 – Phase 5, 6
12. A typical phonics lesson
1. Revisit/Review – practise previously learned sounds
2. Teach – Teach a new sound. Teach one or two new
tricky words.
3. Practise – Practise blending and reading words with
the new sound. Practise segmenting for spelling
words with the new sound.
4. Apply – Read or write a caption or sentence using
one or more tricky words and words containing the
sound.
13. Skills
• Blending – joining a series of sounds together
to make a word
• In order to read an unfamiliar word, a child
must link a phoneme to each letter
(grapheme) or letter group (digraph, trigraph)
in a word and then merge them together to
say the word. This is a vital skill for reading.
•c – a – t sh – o – p t– ai – l
•n –igh- t Decode = to read words.
14. Segmenting
• Segmenting – breaking words down into phonemes to
spell (so, the opposite process to blending). The whole
word is spoken aloud and then broken up into its sounds
(phonemes) in order, all through the word - this is a vital
skill for spelling.
• Encoding = spell words.
• For example,
crash has 4 phonemes c – r – a – sh
15. Phase 1
• Daily speaking and listening activities
• A broad and rich language
experience/environment
• Story, rhyme, drama and songs are an
essential part of the phase
• Hearing sounds in the environment
• Alliteration
• Start segmenting words
• Starts in Nursery (and before)
• Watch Clip
16. Phase 2
• Introduces 19 grapheme-phoneme
correspondences
• Decoding and encoding taught as a reversible
process.
• As soon as children have a small number of
grapheme-phoneme correspondences, blending
and segmenting can start (s-a-t-p-i-n)
• Start with simple 2 letter words such as: am
• Then 3 letter words such as pat
• Tricky words
17. Phase two sounds
• Set 1: s, a, t, p
Set 2: i, n, m, d
Set 3: g, o, c, k
Set 4: ck, e, u, r
Set 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
(no schwa – uh sound) show Mr Thorne
18. Phase two tricky words
• no
• go
• I
• to
• in
• Into
• Phonics play using ipads: Grab a Giggling Phoneme/
explore phase 2 games on the tables.
19. Phase 3
• Introduces another 25 graphemes
• Most comprising two letters
• Reading and spelling two syllable words
and captions
21. ch sh th ng
ai ee igh oa
oo ar or ur
ow oi ear air
ure er
22. Phase three tricky words
he, she, we, me, be, was
you, they, all, are, my, her
Play on ipads: Picnic on Pluto/ explore phase 3 games
23. Phase 4
• Phase Four continues to
revise all the sounds learned
so far and uses them in longer
words known as ccvcs and
cvccs eg. shed, toast and
bread.
• The children are continually
reading, writing and using the
words in simple sentences.
24. Phase four tricky words
said, have, like, so, do
some, come, were, there
little, one, when, out, what
25. Phase 5
• Looks at alternative spellings for each sound and helps
the children recognise which spelling pattern they need
to use: ai, a, ay, ey, eigh a-e, e-e, ea
• The children learn about homographs words which are
spelt the same but are pronounced differently depending
on the context
• Wind the bobbin up – the wind blew
• You have to bow when you meet the queen – Robin
Hood used a bow and arrow
• And homophones words that are pronounced the same
but have different spelling patterns, such as great and
grate or break and brake
• Phase five also looks at syllables in words and
compound words like greenhouse, laptop and bookcase
26. Phase five sounds
a-e (as in came) au (as in Paul) aw (as in saw)
ay (as in day) e-e (as in these) ea (as in sea)
ew (as in chew) ew (as stew) ey (as in money)
i-e (as in like) ie (as in pie) ir (as in girl)
o-e (as in bone) oe (as in toe) ou (as in out)
oy (as in boy) ph (as in Phil) u-e (as in June)
u-e (as in huge) ue (as in clue) ue (as in due)
wh (as in when)
27. Phase five tricky words
Oh, their, people, Mr
Mrs, looked, called, asked
could
Ipads: Play cheeky chimps
28. Phase 6
• During this phase children become fluent readers and
increasingly accurate spellers
• Children should be able to read hundreds of words
• Recognising phonic irregularities
• Learn less common sounds
• Applying phonic skills & knowledge to recognise & spell
complex words
• Past tense
• Suffixes
• Spelling long words
• Finding and learning the difficult bits in words
• Play phonics play: phase 6 planetary plurals
29. How can I help at home?
• Read, Read, Read!
• Listen, listen, listen!
• Encourage children to speak in full sentences.
• Flash cards- show children sound cards, key word cards and see how quickly they
can read them by sight.
• Help your child with learning their spellings and completing homework tasks.
(magnetic letters on the fridge, chalks outside, bubbles in the bath, make sounds with
food on their plate etc.
• Play games- I Spy, Scrabble and Bingo, pairs.
• Play with sounds- Say words and talk about what sounds they can hear, can the
children change the sounds to make it a different word (bright = gright)
• Play educational games on the computer or i-pad
• Encourage children to write for a purpose e.g. write a postcard when on holiday; write
a letter to teacher/parents, shopping/present lists, reminders etc.
• Pick out letters, sounds and words in the environment. Having familiar words around
the house and in children’s bedrooms will help them memorise the spellings.
• Practise spellings on the way to school.
• Make it FUN!!!!!!!!
31. Ways to help at home
• Pairs
• Snap
• Alphabet shopping
• I spy
• Make words using their toys (put stickers with letters
on onto cars or blocks and use them to make words)
• Dice words
• Magnetic letters
• Hangman
32. Phonics pack
• Whiteboard and pen
• Grids for spelling Consonant Vowel Consonant
(CVC) words
• Flash cards of phase 2 and phase 3 sounds
• Phase 2 and phase 3 sound mat
• Examples of nonsense words
• Progression sheet
• Different spellings of the same phoneme
33. Books for sale
• Phonics books - £2.00
• Reading books - £2.00
• Please see your class teacher to find out
what phase your child is working within
and what their next steps are.
Talk about % of language which is phonetically correct
Talk about being able to read without phonics
Research shows you learn to read quicker if you use phonics
Children can then use this knowledge to ‘de-code’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.
Words consist of individual sounds or phonemes – the smallest unit of sound in our language
We use these symbols – letters- to represent the 44 or so sounds in the English language.
The shape of the letters that make the sound.
with each phase building on the skills and knowledge of previous learning. There are no big leaps in learning. Children have time to practise and rapidly expand their ability to read and spell words. They are also taught to read and spell ‘tricky words’, which are words with spellings that are unusual or that children have not yet been taught.
Segmenting and blending are 2 sides if the same coin.
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.
Recognises the importance of developing speaking and listening skills as a priority in their own right and paving the way for making a good start on reading and writing.-
Relies on providing a broad and rich language experience for children indoors and out
Put simply, the more words children know and understand before they start on a systematic programme of phonic work the better equipped they are to succeed
Important to include speaking and listening in a range of cross-curricular activities
Includes oral blending and segmenting activities – adult pronouncing sounds
Marks the beginning of systematic, high quality phonic work –
Introduction of grapheme-phoneme correspondences decoding for reading and encoding for spelling taught as reversible processes
short discreet daily sessions, with opportunities fro children to use and apply their phonic knowledge and skills through out the day
Uses a selection of letters s a t p i n
Children now learn to pronounce the sounds themselves in response to letters, before blending them, starting simple vc cvc words. they should be able to read and spell some of these words using magnetic letters or whiteboards etc
The reverse process s that they segment whole spoken words into phonemes and select letters to represent the phonemes
During this phase children will also learn to read some ‘tricky’ HF words – the go to no
Children beginning to understand how the ‘black squggly things’ make words
Children entering this phase will know around 19 letters and be able to blend phonemes to read VC words and segment VC words to spell
The purpose of this phase is to teach another 25 graphemes, mostly 2 letter ones eg oa so that children can represent each of about 42 phonemes by a grapheme.
Children will learn letter names during this phase, learn to read some more tricky words and begin to spell some of these words.
Completes the teaching of the alphabet
Moves onto sounds represented by more than one letter
One spelling of each of the above is all that is required in this phase
Most children should be able to ‘have a good go’ at decoding most words, and read and spell VC words here if they are developmentally ready
Children will be almost at automaticity level with reading first, with spelling being phonemically plausible
GPC Grapheme-phoneme correspondences!!!
Children entering phase four will be able to represent each of the 44 phonemes by a grapheme, and be able to blend phonemes to read CVC words and segment CVC words for spelling
They will have experience of reading simple two syllable words and captions
They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some tricky words
Many children may be capable of doing this much earlier so should not be held back
No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase
Children learn to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants
Purpose is to consolidate children’s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words containing adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words
PHASES 3 AND 4 ARE VERY CLOSE TOGETHER IN THAT PHASE 4 IS MORE CONSOLIDATION OF PHASE 3 SKILLS – SOME FLEXIBITIY IS THEREFORE POSSIBLE HERE
Some children will reach this stage by the end of reception
More focus her on alphabet names
Moving towards children having alphabetic knowledge
More accurate spelling
More able to use polysyllabic words in own writing
Alternative spellings for phonemes ( p144)
Learn new graphemes and alternative pronunciations for these and graphemes they already know, where relevant
Learn new graphemes e.g. Ow cow, blow, ie tie, field
Children become quicker at recognising graphemes of more than one letter in words and at blending the phonemes they represent.
When spelling words they will choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes
By the beginning of this phase, children should now know most of the common grapheme- phoneme correspondences .
They should be able to read hundreds of words by:
Reading the words automatically if they are very familiar
Decoding them quickly and silently because their sounding and blending routine is now well established
Decoding them aloud
Phonics now ‘subterranean’, and children can decode and encode with confidence
Now should be moving into reading comprehension and spelling
This phase links well with the Y2 spelling objectives and the Y2 and Y3 spelling exemplification materials
Children will be able to spell phonemically accurately
Should be able to use spelling logs
Have basic dictionary skills
Handwriting should be in a fluent style
