Phonics for Parents

Welcome!

Everything starts with reading

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)

???

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.

The Rose Review• 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.

Phonics and Attendance

We have clear evidence that an attendance rate just less than 90% has a significant negative impact on early reading and writing.

Of those children who had attendance of just less than 90%, less than half of them met the national average standards of attainment for reading and writing.

This shows the importance of regular attendance at an early age. If in doubt, bring them in and we can always send them home.

What is phonics?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.

What are speech sounds?

Although there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, there are more than 40

speech sounds.

Letters and sounds DVD

Some definitions

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 BlendingHearing a series of spoken sounds and merging (blending) them together to make a spoken word – no text is used.

For example, when a teacher calls out /b/u/s, the children say bus.

The skill is usually taught before blending using printed words.

BlendingRecognising 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’

s i t l e g m o p

c a n f i t

DigraphTwo letters which make one sound.

A consonant digraph contains two consonants next to each other, but they make a single sound.

e.g. sh, ck, th, ll

A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel but the two letters still make a single sound

e.g. ai ee ar oy

Examples of consonant digraphs

ll ss ff zzhill mess puff fizz

sh ch thship chat thin

ck ng quchick sing quick

Examples of vowel digraphs(Vowel digraphs need to contain at least one

vowel and make one sound.)ai ee igh oa oorain meet might coat zoo

book

ar or ur ow oicar for burn cow coin

blow

ch i ll f or t d u ck

th a t w ai t sh e d

TrigraphThree letters, which make one

sound.

e.g. s igh t f ear ch air

t i n

sh i p

w e n t

s t o p

Word Graphemes

shelf

dress

think

string

sprint

flick

Word Phonemesshelf sh e l f

dress d r e ss

think th i n k

string s t r i ng

sprint s p r i n t

flick f l i ck

Some words are more difficult to sound out and blend – children need

to have understanding of the phoneme/ grapheme

correspondences.

Some words can not be sounded out or blended and need to be recognised as a whole e.g.

said the eyes

These are taught as tricky words.

Children develop their ability to do this over time.

Children develop their own way of remembering these words.

Quiz1. What is a phoneme?

2. How many phonemes are there in the word strap?

3. What is a digraph?4. Give an example of two letters next to

each other but which don’t make a digraph.

5. Write strict on your whiteboard and add the sound buttons/ lines.

Quiz1. What is a phoneme? Smallest unit of sound in a word

2. How many phonemes are there in the word strap? 5

3. What is a digraph? Two letters next to each other that make one sound ai, oo, ee, ow

4. Give an example of two letters next to each other but which don’t make a digraph. fl, tr, st

5. Write strict on your whiteboard and add the sound buttons/ lines.

s t r i c t

Charlie WritingAt Shaw Ridge we teach children how to write the different letters using ‘Charlie Writing’ style.

The benefits of this are:• That each letter starts from line, so helps children

form letters correctly.• It helps them when they join up letters later on in

school.• Each letter has a story which talks them through how

to form the letter correctly. • We are not expecting perfection.

What you can do at home

• Help complete their phonics book at home IN PENCIL PLEASE!

• Practice blending and segmenting words together C-A-T, A-M.

• Read with them, when we feel they are confident enough with sounds then we will put them on reading scheme.

• Make up silly rhyming strings, cat, mat, fat, sat, don’t have to be real words, can be made up silly words which can be more fun.

• Practice their letter sheets regularly.• Encourage them to have a go at writing using the Charlie

Stories, trying to get them into the habit of doing it!