The teaching of Phonics and Spelling at Fountains Earth

Primary School.

• All children start school with a different experience base.

- Sharing stories- Understanding text

carries meaning- Will know the alphabet

(letter names)- Know how to write their

name and recognise their initial letter.

- Know some other letter sounds and be able to write them.

Children learn to spell in a variety of ways. So when we teach spelling, we use a combination of activities and teaching styles.

• Children use all of their senses to help them learn how to spell: they need to hear the letter sounds, see how they link together and manipulate the visual images of letters to form patterns.

• In the early years, children will focus on linking sounds to visual letters and letter strings through their phonics work.

Auditory discrimination & correct pronunciation of sounds

• Sound discrimination. Being able to differentiate and match the same sounds (phonemes)

• Once the auditory skills are developed, we move onto Jolly Phonics: soft letter sounds with actions

• Grouped as a set of contrasting

sounds/phonemes but also grouped so that simple word building can start straight away. (look at JP 1)

• Look at phoneme frames. Practice writing out some simple words spelt out “softly”

Letters Sounds and Phases• Fountains Earth follows the

Letters and Sounds phonics programme published by the Department for Education. 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.

• At the end of Year one, children are given a phonics screening test.

Resources & teaching strategies we use• The programme is organised into 5 phases. (look at overview)• Let’s look at one specific phase from the programme. (phase 3

overview).Terminology: 1.Grapheme- the individual letter shape 2. Phoneme- the sound an individual letter or group of letters make. 3. Digraph- 2 letters that when combined make 1 sound 4. Tri-graph- 3 letters that when combined make 1 sound • Letters and sounds Phase 3 games;- the blending frames. (use a

phoneme frame)• Phase 4 is consolidation of all that comes before it- a chance to identify

any difficulties or digraphs/tri-graphs not yet mastered• Phase 5 introduces different ways of making the same phoneme/sound

with different letter combinations. It also introduces Split Digraphs• Phase 6 focuses on alternative spellings and alternative pronunciations

for the same spelling pattern • let’s get practical…. look at the 5 vowel sounds and the different way of

spelling those sounds (A,E,I,O,U)- on flip chartLet’s practice choosing which one we need to use!- Phoneme frames TEST YOUR PHONIC KNOWLEDGE – let’s play buried treasure

(phonics play)!

HIGH FREQUENCY & TRICKY WORDS

• There are in each phase, a group of High frequency and tricky words.

H/F words are those that can be decoded by sounding out eg: this, down, came etc.

Tricky ones are those that can’t be decodedby sounding out eg: you, what, said, was, some

etc. These have to be learnt as a sight vocabulary; a whole word

THEY ARE REALLY IMPORTANT WORDS AND NEED TO BE LEARNT AS WELL!

• To develop spelling knowledge further, children need to become more familiar with the more technical elements of spelling such as words which sound the same but have a different meanings (homophones). For example, there/their/they’re

• Research shows that the more a child reads then the more capable they usually become at spelling. Therefore, supporting children with regular reading opportunities at home and school is important.

• As a rule, a list of spelling words are given out to children on a weekly basis. These spellings usually follow a rule. Can they talk about the rule? Encourage them to learn them regularly through the week – not just the night before the spelling test? Can they think of more to add to the list? Use the strategy of LOOK / SAY / COVER / WRITE / CHECK to aid memory.

• Although pupils will be tested with formal spelling tests, the assessment of spelling actually focuses more on how they apply their knowledge to everyday writing.

Making it FUN!

• Use a wide variety of ideas and resources (Games/puzzles/ICT etc)

• Encourage independent use of phonic knowledge

• Make visual prompts/support materials accessible.

• Praise good application of phonic knowledge…even if not correct!!

• Practice, practice, practice……….• Any questions?