Year R Phonics WorkshopThursday 22nd January

2015

Mrs Hunt and Miss Courtney

AIMSTo share how phonics and spelling is

taught at Winklebury To teach the basics of phonics and some

useful phonics termsTo outline the different stages in phonic

development To show examples of activities and

resources we use to teach phonics to help you support your child at home

Overview 1. What is phonics?

2. Why is the teaching of phonics so important?

3. How is phonics taught?• Learning the letter sounds• Blending/Segmenting

• Identifying sounds in words• Tricky words

4.Spelling

What is phonics?What is phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read 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 ‘oo’; blend these sounds together from left to right to make a

word. [Source: DfES]

Knowledge of 44 phonemes and 140 graphemes.Skills of blending and segmenting.

Phonics = Skills of reading and spelling + knowledge of the alphabet

Just how difficult is it?

Ready to have a go?

What does this say?

‘Ghoti’

‘Fish’

Did you get it right?

GH – ‘f’ as in enough

O – ‘i’ as in women

TI – ‘sh’ as in station

Making the ‘I’ sound in a word

Light - by - pie - findside

So how do we teach it?

Letters and Sounds(5 distinct phases)

Support for Spellings

Phonics is taught primarily using ‘Letters

and Sounds’

Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education and Skills in 2007. It aims to build children's speaking and listening skills in their own right as well as to prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. It sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonic skills for children starting by the age of five, with the aim of them becoming fluent readers by age seven.

Jolly Phonics Programme

‘Pure Sounds’Need to ensure that pure sounds are used at all

times.

Do not add an “uh” or “er” sound to the end of sounds such as ter, mer, per

Are you using pure sounds when you help your child?

Pure Sounds Clip

Learning the letter sounds

Digraphs (2 letters making 1

sound)

Beware: Adjacent consonants are not digraphs – they have two distinct sounds

S-t-a-m-p not st-a-m-p

Trigraphs (3 letters making 1

sound)

igh air ure ear

Sound buttonsr i ng ch i ck

. . _ _ . _

n igh t

. _ .

Blending for Reading

Using pure sounds/knowledge of digraphs and trigraphs children are taught to say the sounds and then

blend them together

c-a-tn-ee-dm-igh-t

Tricky Words

Some words unfortunately have to be

learnt by sightthese are called ‘Tricky words’

saidbecause

Segmenting for Spelling

This is the opposite

S-t-r-e-t-ch-i-ng the word out and applying the

corresponding grapheme (letter)

How is phonics taught in Year R?

• Daily• Focused and independent activities.

The group a child is in depends on their phonic ability and phase they are working on.

Segmenting for SpellingTo split up a word into it’s individual

phonemes in order to spell it – e.g. cat has 3 c-a-t ship has 3 sh-i-p

Say the wordRepeat using ‘sound talk’

Identify the initial phoneme – the first sound we can hear at the start of the

word? How are these represented – which

letter/digraph?Repeat until word is completed

‘Stretching’ for Spelling

•Children are encouraged to ‘stretch’ words out for spelling applying their knowledge of phonics from taught sessions•Children are encouraged to be independent spellers so they have the confidence to write independently

MnemonicsA common mnemonic for remembering tricky spellings is to create an easily remembered

acronym. For example:

‘said’ Sam and I dance

Give children ownership - that way they will remember

them!

1. Introduction – Warm-upAlphabet, jolly phonics

2. Revisit/ReviewPractise previously learned graphemes and tricky words

3. Teach New grapheme and tricky word(s)

4. PractiseWords containing new grapheme

5. Apply Read or write sentences using new

digraph/tricky words

Now it’s your turn!

AssessmentHalf-Termly - each child is assessed on the phase they have been learning. If they have achieved at least 90% of the phase, they will

then be moved onto the next phase.The children’s assessment sheets will then follow them from year group to year group

and later from infants to juniors so their progress is continually monitored.

Homework• Help your child use phonics to read

unknown words that they come across in their reading books and encourage them to use their phonics independently.

• Continue to practise keywords everyday in the pink word books as the children need to recognise these words from sight memory.

• Discuss any tricky words you come across in your child’s reading book. Sometimes they just need to be told a word that cannot be sounded out.

• Practise writing words/sentences using phonics.