This document summarizes a workshop for parents on teaching phonics. It explains that phonics involves teaching the sounds that make up words as a code for reading and writing. The workshop covers the progression through six phases of phonics instruction, from basic sound recognition to spelling rules. It provides examples of phonics elements like graphemes, phonemes, blending and segmenting. The goal is for parents to understand how phonics is taught so they can support their children's learning at home through games and activities involving letters, sounds and reading.

1. Letters and Sounds
Workshop for Parents

2. Learning Intentions
— To understand the importance of phonics.
— To get an idea of how phonics is taught BFS Naples.
— To understand the progression through phonic phases and
how to support and develop children’s learning.
— What can I do at home?

3. What is phonics?
Quite simply…
The sounds that make up
words!
Reading and writing are like a code:
phonics is one of the ways we teach the
child to crack the code of reading and
writing.

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCLg
6DsYuyw
Why is teaching this way effective?

5. Phonics is important…but it is not the
ONLY element of reading!
• I use the pictures to help me.
• I use punctuation to help me make
sense of what I am reading.
• I go back and read a word or
sentence again if I don’t understand
it.
• I read on to see if I can work out the
meaning of a word I don’t know.
• Asking and answering questions.

6. PHONICS – key elements
• Correct pronunciation
• Correct vocabulary
• We all need to use the same
language at home and at school.

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYx1
CyDMZSc
How to say the sounds.

8. Some Definitions
A Phoneme
This is the smallest
unit of sound in a
word.
How many phonemes can
you hear in
cat? (CVC)

9. GRAPHEME
• Letters representing a phoneme
e.g.
c ai igh
Children need to practise
recognising the grapheme and
saying the phoneme that it
represents.

10. Once children are good with
single phonemes…
• DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1
sound
ll ss zz oa ai
• TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1
sound
igh dge

11. BLENDING
• Recognising the letter sounds in a
written word, for example c-u-p
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the
order in which they are written to
pronounce the word ‘cup’
• We practise blending by putting
‘sounds buttons’ under the words

12. Put the sound buttons under
these words
speed crayon
slight toast
broom foil
crawl jumper

13. Put the sound buttons under
these words
speed crayon
slight toast
broom foil
crawl jumper

14. SEGMENTING
• ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out
• The opposite of blending
• Use your ‘ROBOT ARMS’ or ‘Phoneme
Fingers’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Pe
i0_joeE

15. Segmenting Activity
• Use your ‘robot arms’ to say how
many phonemes in each word.
• shelf
• dress
• sprint
• string

16. 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
• string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

17. Summary of Phases
— Phase 1 (Nursery - on-going)
◦ To distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and
alliteration.
— Phase 2 (6 weeks)
◦ To introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences.
— Phase 3 (12 weeks)
◦ To teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to spell simple
regular words.
— Phase 4 (4-6 weeks)
◦ To read and spell words containing adjacent consonants.
— Phase 5 (in Yr1)
◦ To teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for
phonemes.
— Phase 6 (in Yr2)
◦ To develop their skill and automaticity in reading and writing.

18. Phase 1
• Your child will be learning to:
– Have fun with sounds
– Listen carefully
– Develop their vocabulary
– Speak confidently to you, other adults and children
– Tune into sounds
– Listen and remember sounds
– Talk about sounds
– Understand that spoken words are made up of
different sounds

19. Phase 2
•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

20. Phase 3
• Set 6: j, v, w, x
• Set 7: y, z, zz, qu
• Consonant digraphs: ch, sh,
th, ng
• Vowel digraphs: ai, ee, igh, oa,
oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air,
ure, er

21. Phase 4
•This phase consolidates
all the children have
learnt in the previous
phases.

22. Phase 5
• Children will be taught new
graphemes and alternative
pronunciations for these
graphemes.
• Vowel digraphs: wh, ph, ay, ou, ie,
ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, ew, oe, au
• Split digraphs: a_e, e_e, i_e,
o_e, u_e

23. Phase 6
• The focus is on learning spelling
rules for suffixes.
-s -es -ing -ed
-er -est -y -en
-ful -ly -ment -ness

24. What does a Phonics lesson
look like?
Revisit/review Flashcards to practice
phonemes learnt so far.
Teach Teach new phoneme air
Practice Buried treasure
Air, zair, fair, hair, lair, pair,
vair, sair, thair
Apply Read captions:
The goat had a long beard.
The quack was right in his ear.

25. Jolly Phonics

26. TRICKY WORDS
• Words that are not phonically decodable
but they are also taught in the Letters and
Sounds scheme-don’t sound out!
e.g. was, the, they, come
• Some words are Key words in the early
stages of reading and may be given to
learn how to read and spell quickly.

32. What can I do at home?
• Just knowing some of this information will support you
when you are reading with your child. You will know
whether or not they are able to sound out a word or
whether you should tell them the word and help them be
more confident and fluent.
• Find out from your child’s teacher what phase they are
working on.
• Play rhyming games, read rhyming books-ask your child
what rhymes with?
• Play blending and segmenting games
• Notice words/letters in the environment.
• Talk about what is a word/letter /sentence and locate
• Play matching pairs – with key words or individual
sounds/pictures.
• Key words or tricky words on the stairs/bingo
• Clap syllables in words
• Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read
them?

33. Resources online
http://www.letters-and-sounds.com
http://www.ictgames.com
Education City

34. Any Questions?