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A Guide to Phonics
Learning to Listen, Speak, Read
and Write.
Aims of the Workshop
• To help you understand the importance
of phonics.
• To help you gain a better understanding
of phonics terminology.
• To give you insight into how we teach
phonics at school.
• Hopefully give you some ideas as to
what to do at home.
What is Synthetic Phonics?
Phonics is:
• Mastering listening and speaking which enables
children to learn to read and write by using
pure letter sounds.
• Blending to read and segmenting to spell.
• Learning the exceptions to the rules!
• Most importantly, phonics gives the children all
the tools they will ever need to decode
unfamiliar words. Phonics is what helps to
crack the code of reading and writing.
Phonics Jargon!
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Phoneme – the sound a letter makes
Grapheme – the sound written down
Digraph – 2 letters that make one sound e.g. ai
Trigraph – 3 letters that make one sound e.g. igh
Tricky word – a word that cannot be sounded out
High frequency word – a regular or tricky word
that occurs often in reading and writing.
• CVC word – consonant vowel consonant like cat. Can also
refer to consonant digraph consonant because the digraph
makes a vowel sound, for example, the word boat.
What we do at School.
• Letters and Sounds: Principles and Practice
of High Quality Phonics (DFES 2007)
• Split into 6 phases:
- Phase 1 (Nursery – speaking and listening, rhyme and
alliteration and oral blending and segmenting.)
- Phase 2-4 (Reception)
- Phase 5 (Year 1)
- Phase 6 (Year 2)
• Phonics should be fun which is why we make it
practical, multisensory and varied.
Phonics in Nursery
• Speaking and listening is the key in Nursery.
• Children focus on listening to environmental
sounds, rhythms and rhymes. They learn to
concentrate on sounds around them and what is
means to be a good listener.
• Children begin to say the sounds (phonemes) in
words - oral segmenting and blending.
• Some children may start to learn to recognise
what the sound looks like written down
(graphemes) but this usually starts in
Reception.
Phonics in Reception
• The work from Nursery carries on throughout
Reception and then continues on through to Years
1 & 2.
• We teach the building blocks of reading and
writing – blending and segmenting.
• In Phase 2 and 3 children learn 42 phonemes in all
and how to use them to read and write.
• Practice, practice, practice!
• Encourage the children to be independent in their
learning. Using the book corner, storytelling
areas and writing table to extend their own
learning.
Phonics in Key Stage 1
• The children continue to practise the
sounds, words and letter names
previously learned in Reception.
• The children will move up to the next
year group and are likely to repeat parts
of phonics so that they can regain
confidence in the identification and
application of letter sounds.
Year 1
• Phase 5 starts in Year 1, although some children
may have encountered parts of it in Reception.
• In Phase 5 the children begin to learn sound
families – the same sound spelled differently. E.g.
ai, ay, ey, eigh. They will also be introduced to
alternative pronunciations of familiar sounds e.g. ow
in bow and bow.
• The children also continue to learn tricky and high
frequency words. They will also be reading and
writing poly-syllabic words.
• Phonics screening test.
Year 2
• In phase 6 the children learn more about
spelling choices and reading with greater
accuracy and fluency. We introduce the
use of tenses and suffixes, finding and
learning the difficult bits in words and
learning and practising spellings.
• Much more about the application of their
phonics and learning the exceptions to the
rules!
A Phonics Lesson
• No more than 20 minutes long.
• Four parts to each lesson:
Revisit
Previously learned sounds and blending and segmenting
Teach
A new letter sound, blending and segmenting, one or two Tricky Words.
Practise
Reading and/or spelling with the new letter.
Apply
Read or write a caption (with the teacher) using one or more high frequency
words and words containing the new letter.
Speaking and Listening
• Teaching children to Listen – listening
walks (environmental sounds), listening to
each other talking, listening to rhyme and
alliteration in words.
• Speaking clearly to each other.
• Hearing and repeating sounds in words.
• Oral blending and segmenting.
Learning the Sounds
• Essential that children know how to say the
pure letter sounds.
• Alphablocks
• Keep learning fun!
• Get the children to teach you the Jolly
Phonics actions that we use at school.
• Play games with sounds.
- make groups of objects with the same first sounds.
- use sounds from school to play matching games, hide and seek, bingo
- find the sounds in favourite books
- write them in different ways (shaving foam, toothpaste, paint, sand),
• Apply sounds to everyday situations – let the
children see you read and write regularly and
point out sounds when you are out and about.
• Blending –
words.
Reading
the ability to merge letter sounds together to read
• Essential that children can do this orally first.
• Stretching sounds –
make the sounds as long as possible to help
children to hear the words they make.
• Breaking down polysyllabic words into 2 or more parts
and then blending the parts together.
• Play games – word and picture matching.
• Make sure that sharing books at home is part of your
everyday routine.
• Inspire a love of reading. It should be a pleasure not
a chore!
Word Building
(it’s not quite writing!)
• Segmenting – the ability to break words up into their
sounds.
• Oral segmenting – using robot arms (multisensory
learning).
• Essential that children can do this verbally first.
• Word building – using sounds to make words. This
can be done with magnetic letters and sound cards
rather than pencil and paper.
• Segmenting and word building are the beginnings
of writing.
Writing
• Keep writing fun and very practical, especially for
boys.
• Practise correct letter formation. Use different
materials for writing – chalks outside, paint, write
in mud with sticks, shaving foam, gloop (cornflour
and water mix), toothpaste, sand.
• Always have a context or reason for writing, make
it meaningful (lists, notes, cards, messages on the
fridge, special books).
• We always encourage phonetic spelling, even if
words are not spelled completely accurately. It’s
all about having a go and becoming confident in
using phonics as their primary strategy.
Examples of Children’s Phonetic
Writing in Reception
“Jac clighmd the beenstork.”
“The fighyuwerks wer pritee.”
“We looct at the nursuree wen we went
rownd the scool.”
All to be encouraged at this young age! The emphasis is
on having a go, making mistakes and taking risks, not
accurate spelling (that comes later).
Examples of Children’s Phonetic
Writing in Year 1
“I went to the beech and I fownd a crab in the
rock pool.”
“The duck got stuck in the mud so he jumpt out
of the car.”
“One day the boy and girl went on a advenchur
to the rainforest.”
There is more emphasis on writing longer sentences, correct
spelling of tricky words and using the new sounds that they are
being introduced to in phonics.
Examples of Children’s Phonetic
Writing in Year 2
“When I was on holiday I went to the beach. Luckily I
spotted an enormus crab in a rock pool.”
“In the story there were lots of difrunt caracters. I
liked the giant because he was very scairy.”
“One sunny morning, two children went out to play with
some frends. Suddenly a wolf jumped out at them
and trighd to eat them!”
There is a much greater emphasis on correct spelling of tricky and high
frequency words. Sentences are longer and more detailed but
phonetic attempts at longer and more difficult words is still
expected with some confusion between words spelled with
alternative digraph sounds. These are more often corrected at this
age.
The Exceptions to the Rules!
• Tricky Words!
• Words that can not be decoded, they
just have to be learned.
• Examples: the, no, you, to.
• Once they have been introduced, these
words are displayed in the classroom all
the time.
Things to do at home
• Most important: Be a good role model, let the
children see you reading and writing for pleasure and
for purpose. Instil a love of learning and make
learning fun!
• Keep practising recognition (see it say it) and recall
(hear it write it) of ALL sounds, even ones you think
they know.
• Lots of speaking and listening, oral blending (play I
Spy a c-a-t etc) and oral segmenting (how would the
robot say cup?) Teach good listening skills, encourage
meaningful talk.
• Practising blending and segmenting using sound cards,
matching pictures or objects to word cards.
• Lots of reading; the best readers make the best
writers. Everything is linked in Literacy.
Useful websites
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www.familylearning.org.uk
www.phonicsplay.co.uk
www.ictgames.co.uk
www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/
games/index.htm
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks
http://www.wordsforlife.org.uk/
www.oxfordowl.co.uk