Phonics

c...a…t

For Reading and Writing

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound of spoken language

When the ‘phonemes’ are combined, they make the words that we speak

Sounds are made in the throat and mouth

Sounds are made from the movement of muscles in the throat, face, mouth and tongue

Sounds are made from vibration and / or the movement of air

There are approximately 44 phonemes (units of sound) in the English language

These phonemes are represented in written English by graphemes (letter shapes)

Each phoneme may be represented by a single letter, a diagraph (2 letters) or trigraphs (3 letters) A few phonemes are represented by 4 or more letters

Some phonemes are represented in a variety of ways this is one reason why learning to read and

write the English language is more tricky than other languages – there is more than one way to ‘spell’, or represent, some of the phonemes

Children need to be able to make different sounds in order to be able to speak. They learn to speak by hearing and copying those around them

To move onto learning the link betweenspeech and written language…

Children need to be able to distinguish and discriminate between one sound and another – they need to be able to hear the different phonemes

Early provision – lots of talk / singing / chanting, making sounds, using the mouth / tongue etc, hearing different sounds, spotting the difference between a range of sounds

3. Learn the letter(s) that represent it

1. Hear the phoneme 2. Say the phoneme

Decoding (Reading)

Writing/Spelling(encoding)

Recognise the letters in print and link with phonemes

Segment and Blend phonemes to read the word

Write the letters which represent the phoneme

Segment a word into its phonemes and represent with letter(s)

Hearing and saying the phoneme

Initial – at the beginning of a word strong phonemes medial (middle) and final phonemes

Learning the letter(s) that represent the phoneme

Visual image of letter(s) linked with phoneme

Segmenting and blending – Decoding written words

Saying a word, counting the phonemes (sound buttons / fingers) blending together to say the word again and read it

Segmenting and blending – Encoding to write words

Saying a word, counting the phonemes (sound buttons / fingers) writing the grapheme to represent the phonemes. Writing is phonetically plausible e.g. written how it sounds out

Spelling –

Learning spelling patterns and word families along with Key word / High frequency words

Word

1.SayitPhonemes

2. Count the phonemes 3.Blend to say

the wordReading -

Blend to read

the word

Writing –

Represent

each phoneme

with grapheme

shelf sh e l f

dress d r e ss

green g r ee n

think th i n k

stretch s t r e t ch

sprint s p r i n t

flick f l i ck

Purpose Pace

Passion

Praise

We must know what we are teaching and

how this builds on what

they learnt previously

The adult directs the

session. It is pacey and

purposeful.

The adult models a passion for what they are teaching. If we

don’t get excited about phonics the

children won’t either

Children need to be actively

involved (not sitting passively)

Children do best when they are

praised for their efforts and when their learning is

celebrated

Participation

There are different schemes for teaching phonics although what children have to learn in each scheme is the same

Phonics flashcards and display friezes.

Sound mats

Actions and songs

Pace of scheme (1 sound per day)

Planning – this scheme includes different spelling patterns (ai/ay/a_e)

Word flashcards with ‘sound buttons’

Speed sounds grid

‘Flashcards with ‘ditties’ (memorable phrases with pictures to help learn the sounds)

Jolly phonics

Letters and

Sounds

Read, Write

Inc

Some schemes available…

Reso

urce

s /i

deas

that

we u

se f

rom

eac

h s

chem

e

And Alpha to Omega

1. Set expectation for the session

2. Review - Quickly review previous learning

3. Speedy phonics flash

4. Teach - Share the purpose (new learning objective)

5. Practise blending lots of words using the new sound

‘Everyone eyes this way. I am looking for super star listeners. Great we are all ready.’

‘Yesterday we learnt ‘oa’ words. Let’s see how many ‘oa’ words we can segment then blend.

Use the speed sounds grid or a set of phonics flashcards.

We are going to learn the ‘ch’ sound it has 2 letters that make one sound.

Use the letters and sounds ‘sound button’ flash cards or simply write a list of appropriate words on a portable whiteboard.

Early stages – hearing and discriminating sounds and learning the letter(s) that represent the phonemes

Children do phonics in ability groups

Phase 3Week 1

Focus phonemes: ch, sh, th, ng, ai

Bank of words

ch – chin, chug, check, such, chip, chill, much, rich, chicken.sh – ship, shop, shed, shell, fish, shock, cash, bash, hush, rushth – them, then, that, this, with, moth, thin, thick, path, bathng – ring, rang, hang, song, wing, rung, king, long, sing, ping-pongai – wait, hail, pain, aim, sail, main, tail, rain, bait

Ditties (use these with read write inc picture flash cards)

ch (bouncy sound) – “ch, ch, choo!” The horse sneezes as the caterpillars hairs get up his nosesh (stretchy sound) – “shhhh” says the horse to the hissing snaketh (stretchy sound) – The princess in the tower is rescued by the horse she says“thhhhankyou”ng (stretchy sound) – “nnnng - A thing on a string”ai (stretchy sound) - “snail in the rain”

Review Set of phase 2 flash cards (cvc words)Practise segmenting and blending 6-10 words.

Phonics flash

Using the speed sounds grid / flash cards practise saying each digraph /trigraph with the children.Model the ‘pure’ sound and get chn to repeat and practise as necessary.

Teach Hold up the ch flashcard and say ‘ch’

Show chn the jolly phonics action / say the Read Write Inc ‘ditty’ and look at the matching picture flashcardch has two letters that make one sound Model saying the sound clearly then point to the chn to make the sound. Do this several times at a quick pace.

Practise BlendingI blend, we blend, blend to a partner.The teacher starts by segmenting and then blending a word ch/i/n…chin. The chn do this with the teacher, then the chn turn to their partner and each have a go at doing this. They quickly turn back to the teacher for the next word. SegmentingTeacher says- “The word is chip.”Children say- “ch-i-p” (they use their fingers to mark the sounds, using two fingers for the digraphs) Repeat for other ch words

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonics – learning outcomes

Phase 1

• Explore and experiment with sounds and words

• Listen attentively

• Show a growing awareness and appreciation of rhyme, rhythm and alliteration

• Speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control

• Distinguish between different sounds in words

• Develop awareness of the differences between phonemes

Phase 2

• Children know that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes

• They have knowledge of a small selection of common consonants and vowels taught in sets.

• They blend them together in reading simple CVC words and segment them to support spelling.

Phase 3

• Children link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet.

• They recognise letter shapes and say a sound for each.

• They hear and say sounds in the order in which they occur in the word,

• They read simple words by sounding out and blending the phonemes all through the word from left to right.

• They recognise common digraphs and read some high frequency words.

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonics – learning outcomes

Phase 4

• Children are able to blend and segment adjacent consonants in words

• They apply this skill when reading unfamiliar texts and in spelling

Phase 5

• Teaching children to recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught

(Mean /Bread)

Phase 6

• Moving into spelling strategies and skills

• Plurals

• Suffixes

• Prefixes

• Past tense ed/ing

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonics

Children in phases 1 and 2 will be in the earliest stages of their phonic development. They will be working from phase 1 and 2 of the ‘Letters and sounds’ programme.

Phase 1

Lots of talk / singing / chanting, making sounds, using the mouth / tongue etc, hearing different sounds, spotting the difference between a range of soundsActivities in this phase will run alongside phase 2 and be used to embed the sounds taught.

Phase 2

Rate of sound introduction It is recommended that the letter sounds are introduced at the rate of one letter sound every day. All 44 letter sounds are introduced at this rate so that they have been covered in about 9 weeks. Recapping from prior session to be undertaken daily.

Progression in phase 2 (one sound per day)Set 1: s a t pSet 2: i n m dSet 3: g o c kSet 4: ck e u rSet 5: h b f/,ff l,/ll ss quSet 6/7: j v w x y z/zz

As well as learning the above phonemes children will be blending phonemes to read VC/CV (if, on, is/no, go, so) words and they will be segmenting VC/CV words to spell. They will be blending and segmenting CVC words

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonicsPhase 3

•In this phase you will teach another 18 phonemes, most of them comprising two (digraph) or three (trigraph) letters.

•The children will represent each of about 44 phonemes (those taught in phases 2 and 3) by a grapheme.

•Children also continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation and will apply their knowledge of blending and segmenting to reading and spelling simple two-syllable words and captions.

•They will secure letter names during this phase, learn to read tricky words and also learn to spell some of these words.

Progression in phase 3 (one sound per day)

ch, sh, th, ng, ai

ee, ie/igh, oa, oo/oo, ar

or, ur, ow, oi, er

ear, air, ure, ire

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonics

Phase 4

Children entering Phase Four will be able to represent each of 44 phonemes by a grapheme, and be able to blend phonemes to read CVC words and segment CVC words for spelling.

They will have some experience in reading simple two-syllable words and captions.

They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some tricky words.

The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children’s knowledge of phonemes/graphemes in reading and spelling words that contain adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words.

Words learnt in this phase may follow the patterns below…CVCC words, CCV and CCVC words, CCVCC, CCCVC and CCCVCC words

Lists of words are available in the letters and sounds documentation.

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonics

Phase 5

•Children entering Phase Five are able to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and some polysyllabic words.

•The purpose of this phase is for children to broaden their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes for use in reading and spelling.

•They will learn new graphemes. Some of the alternatives will already have been encountered in the high-frequency words that have been taught.

•Children become quicker at recognising digraphs and trigraphs and at blending the phonemes they represent.

•When spelling words they will learn to choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes and begin to build word-specific knowledge of the spellings of words.

How do we teach phonics at Brantridge?

Phases of phonicsPhase 6

•By the beginning of Phase Six, children should know most of the common grapheme– phoneme correspondences (GPCs). They should be able to read hundreds of words, doing this in three ways: 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.

•Children’s spelling should be phonemically accurate, although it may still be a little unconventional at times. Spelling usually lags behind reading, as it is harder.

•During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.

•At this stage many children will be reading longer and less familiar texts independently and with increasing fluency. The shift from learning to read to reading to learn takes place and children read for information and for pleasure.

•Children need to learn some of the rarer GPCs and be able to use them accurately in their reading.

•A few children may be less fluent and confident, often because their recognition of phonemes consisting of two or more letters is not automatic enough. Such children may still try to use phonics by sounding out each letter individually and then attempting to blend these sounds (for instance /c/-/h/-/a/-/r/-/g/-/e/ instead of /ch/-/ar/-/ge/).

•The solution is greater familiarity with phonemes of two or more letters.

•Increasing the pace of reading is an important objective.

Useful terms and definitions

Blending Recognising the letter sounds in a word and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word

Consonant cluster

A consonant cluster is a group or sequence of consonants that appear together in a syllable without a vowel between them e.g. splash, splat, stream, strap, string,

CVC A word made up of - consonant, vowel, consonant e.g. cat, mop, logYou may also see: VC - is / CV - no / CVCC - tent

Digraph / Trigraph

Two consecutive letters that represent one soundch, sh, th, ar, ngThree consecutive letters that represent one soundigh, ear, ure

Grapheme A way of writing down a phoneme (recording it in print)Graphemes can be made up of 1 letter ‘p’, 2 letters ‘sh’, 3 letters ‘igh’ or 4 letters ‘augh’

Phoneme The smallest unit of sound of spoken language

Schwa Adding an extra ‘uh’ or ‘er’ to the phonemeE.g. Instead of a short ‘p’ it turns into ‘puh’, or ‘m’ turns into ‘mer’This makes blending sounds very difficult and inaccurate and must be corrected

Segmenting Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound to form the word “him”

Split digraph(magic e)

The vowel sound has been splitWith ‘magic e’ the end vowel (the ‘e’) reaches backwards over the consonant to change the sound of the vowel before it to a long vowel soundcake pipe bone

Onset and rhyme

e.g. cat, rat, pat, mat / dog, log, fog / car, far, jar / night, light, fight, fright (change initial consonant)

Jolly phonics sound mat

For use in writing

Speed sounds matFor use in phonics sessions to

read sounds quickly

Phonics friezeFor classroom display or to be

used as flashcards

Letters and sounds ‘sound button’

flashcardsFor use in phonics sessionsPress the sound buttons as

you say each sound

Lolly sticksFor children to use as

pointers for sounds/words

Read, Write, Inc flashcards

For use in phonics sessionsThese include ‘ditties’

memorable rhymes to help learn the sounds

Year 1 and 2 both have sets of letters and sounds ‘sound button flashcardsExtra sound mats and flash card resources can be found under A.Curriculum_Englush_Phonics

The 44 Phonemes

fffph

lllle

mmmmb

nnnkn

rrrwr

ssssecce

vve

zzzsse

shtici

th ngnk

consonant sounds

bbb

ckckch

ddd

ggg

h jggedge

ppp

qu ttt

wwh

x y chtch

vowel sounds

a eea

i o u aya_eai

eeyeae

ighi_eieiy

owo_eoao

oou_eueew

oo ar oroororeawau

airare

irurer

ouow

oyoi

ire ear ure

a b c ck d e f

ff

g h

i j K l

ll

m n o p

qu r s

ss

t u v w x

Y z

zz

ai ee

or

ie oa ue oi

er ar oo ou th sh ch ng

A B C D E F G H

I J K L M N O P

Qu R S T U V W X

Y Z

sssnake a-a-a-apple t-t-t-tower p-p-p-pirate i-i-i-insect

nnnnet mmmountain d-d-d-dinosaur g-g-g-girl o-o-o-orange

c-c-c-caterpillar

k-k-k-kangaroo

e-e-e-egg u-u-u-umbrella rrrrobot

h-h-h-horse

b-b-b-bat fffflower lllleg qu-qu-qu-queen

j-j-j-jack in a box

vvvvulture w-w-w-worm x-x-x-exercise y-y-y-yak

zzzzip

The horse sneezes when the

caterpillar’s hairs get up his nose

shhh said the horse to the hissing snake

The princess in the tower is rescued by the horse she

says

thhhhankyou

nggg a thing on a string

cup of tea

fly high

goat in a boat

look at a book

What can you see?

nice smile

blow the snow

poo at the zoo

ch-ch-ch-choo!snail in the rain

May I play?

make a cake

shut the door

nurse with a purse

brown cow

spoil the boy

hear with your ear sure it’s pure fire fire! I think I stink

it’s a celebration

phone home

a better letter

whirl and twirl

toy for the boy

yawn at dawn

that’s not fair

care and

share

scrumptious delicious

start the car

chew the

stew

huge brute

he we she me be

fffph

lllle

mmmmb

nnnkn

rrrwr

ssssecce

vve

zzzsse

shtici

th ngnk

Write some examples…

bbb

ckckch

ddd

ggg

h jggedge

ppp

qu ttt

wwh

x y chtch

Write some examples…

a eea

i o u aya_eai

eeyeae

ighi_eieiy

owo_eoao

oou_eueew

oo ar oroororeawau

airare

irurer

ouow

oyoi

ire ear ure