A NORTHILL COFE VA LOWER SCHOOL PARENT PRESENTATION:

PHONICS… AN INTRODUCTION TO LETTERS AND SOUNDS

BEING ABLE TO READ IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL CHILDREN WILL LEARN DURING THEIR EARLY SCHOOLING AND HAS FAR- REACHING IMPLICATIONS FOR LIFELONG CONFIDENCE AND WELL- BEING. (‘LETTERS AND SOUNDS’ PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF HIGH QUALITY PHONICS)

HAVE A READ…

It iz tiem too gow hoam sed v kator pilla.

But iy doat wont 2 gow howm sed th

butt or flie. Iy wot to staiy heyr.

WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

• The independent review of early

reading, conducted by Jim Rose,

confirmed that ‘high quality

phonic work’ should be the prime

means for teaching beginner

readers to learn to read (and

spell).

• The review also highlighted the

importance of developing, from

the earliest stages, children’s

speaking and listening skills –

ensuring that beginner readers

are ready to get off to a good

start in phonic work.

BUT… WHAT IS IT?

• Phonics is the link between letters and the sounds they make.

• Using a highly structured programme working through 6 progressive

phases, children are taught:

• The full range of common letter/ sound correspondences.

• To hear separate sounds within words.

• To blend sounds together.

THERE ARE 26 LETTERS IN THE ENGLISH ALPHABET BUT…

THERE ARE MORE THAN 40 SPEECH SOUNDS.

SOME KEY WORDS

• Phoneme

• The smallest unit of sound in a word.

• Grapheme

• What we write to represent a sound/ phoneme –

for some phonemes, this could be more than one

letter.

• e.g. t ai igh

• Oral Blending • Hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging

(blending) them together to make a spoken word –

no text is used.

• For example, when children hear /b/u/s, they will say

bus.

• The skill is usually taught before blending using

printed words.

• Blending • Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for

example c- u- p, and blending them in the order

which they are written, to read the word ‘cup’

SOUND BUTTONS…

DIGRAPHS TWO LETTERS WHICH MAKE ONE SOUND.

CONSONANT DIGRAPHS

• A consonant digraph contains two

consonants next to each other,

but they make a single sound.

• e.g. sh, ck, th, ll

VOWEL DIGRAPHS

• A vowel digraph contains at least

one vowel but the two letters still

make a single sound.

• e.g. ai ee ar oy

EXAMPLES

ll ss ff zz

hill mess puff fizz

sh ch th

ship chat thin

ck ng qu

chick sing quick

Ai ee igh oa oo

Rain meet might coat zoo

book

ar or ur ow oi

car for burn cow coin

blow

DIGRAPH SOUND BUTTONS

TRIGRAPH

• Three letters, which make

one sound.

SOME WORDS ARE MORE DIFFICULT TO SOUND OUT AND BLEND – CHILDREN NEED TO HAVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHONEME/ GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCES.

LETTERS AND SOUNDS

Letters and sounds is a six phase teaching programme

PHASE ONE

Phase one comprises of seven aspects.

• Aspect One: Environmental Sounds

• Aspect Two: Instrumental Sounds

• Aspect Three: Body Percussion

• Aspect Four: Rhythm and Rhyme

• Aspect Five: Alliteration

• Aspect Six: Voice Sounds

• Aspect Seven: Oral Blending and segmenting

PHASE TWO

• By the end of phase two children

should be able to read some vc

and cvc words.

• Children will also learn to read

the words ‘the, to, go, I and no.’

• Five sets of letters are introduced

– usually one set per week.

• Children are taught reading and

spelling throughout the week.

• Each session follows the same

format.

• The activities used to teach vary

and can be adapted.

• They are multisensory and appeal

to different learning styles

PHASE THREE

• Children are taught another 25

graphemes.

• Children continue to blend and

segment CVC words for reading

and spelling.

• Children will then use this

knowledge to blend and segment

two syllable words.

PHASE FOUR

• By Phase 4 children are able to represent each

of 44 phonemes by a grapheme.

• Children will be able to blend and segment

CVC words for reading and spelling.

• Phase 4 is consolidation of children’s

knowledge.

• Children are encouraged to practice blending

for reading and segmenting for spelling of

adjacent consonants.

PHASE FIVE

• Children will broaden their knowledge of graphemes and

phonemes.

• They will learn alternative pronunciations of graphemes

including split digraphs.

PHASE SIX

• Children working at phase six can read hundreds of words

automatically.

• Children can decode words quickly and silently.

• Children’s spelling will be phonetically accurate.

• During this phase children become fluent readers and

increasingly accurate spellers.

YOUR TURN…

WHAT DOES A PHONICS LESSON LOOK LIKE?

Revisit/review Practise phonemes learnt so far e.g. using

flashcards or puppet

Teach Teach reading high frequency words

Teach new phoneme /x/

Practice Blending for reading: fox, six, box, mix, fix e.g.

matching words and pictures

Segmenting for spelling using a phoneme frame

Apply Applying reading to captions/sentences e.g.

yes/no questions:

•Is the sun wet?

•Can the fox fit in the box?

YEAR 1 PHONICS SCREENING CHECK

SOME USEFUL WEBSITE/ACTIVITIES

• www.Phonicsplay.co.uk

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/

• http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

• Youtube

• Mr Thorn does phonics

• Geraldine the Giraffe

• Cbeebies.co.uk- Alphablocks

THANK YOU!

ANY QUESTIONS?