What is Phonics and how do we teach it?

What is Phonics and how do we teach it?

Phonics Teaching 6 Phases • Phase 1 • :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 One was designed to help children to: • Listen attentively • Enlarge vocabulary • Speak confidently • Discriminate phonemes • Reproduce audibly the phonemes they hear

Phase 2 • Is the start of systematic phonic work. Jolly Phonics- Alphabet Song. • Begins the understanding of grapheme- phoneme correspondence. • Understand that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes.

Tricky words Words that are not phonically decodable. Various words are introduced at different phases which the children just have to learn. e.g. was, the, I. Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodable once we have learned the harder phonemes. e.g. out, there.

Graphemes • Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c aiigh

Phonemes • A Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. Pronouncing the phonemes correctly is very important. eg the letter s is pronounced sssss and not suh. We all need to use the same language at home and at school.

Phase 2 • 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 – one set per week. • 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

BLENDING • Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

SEGMENTING • ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out • The opposite of blending • Use your ‘ROBOT ARMS’

Segmenting Activity • How many phonemes in each word? f shelf sh- e- l- 4 phonemes string s- t- r- i- ng 5 phonemes

Phase 3 • Completes the teaching of the alphabet and children move onto sounds represented by more than 1 letter. • DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound llsszzoaai • TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh air • Set 6: j, v, w, x Set 7: y, z, zz, quConsonant digraphs:ch, sh, th, ngVowel digraphs:ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er

Phase 4 • In Phase 4, no new graphemes are introduced. The main aim of this phase is to consolidate the children's knowledge and to help them learn to read and spell words which have adjacent consonants, such as trap, string and milk. • Phase 4 is generally started at the beginning of Year 1, but may sometimes be covered at the end of YR then recapped at the start of Y1.

Phase 5 • In Phase Five, children will learn more graphemes and phonemes. For example, they already know ai as in rain, but now they will be introduced to ay as in day and a-e as in make. • Alternative pronunciations for graphemes will also be introduced, e.g. ea in tea, head and break. Phase 5 is a long unit, taught throughout Year 1.

Countdown (Taken from support for spelling Phase 5 games) Have a focus phoneme. Give children a selection of sounds. Give them one minute to make the best word they can.

Phase Six/support for spellingThroughout year 2 Children working at phase six can read hundreds of words automatically. Children can decode words quickly and silently. Children’s spelling will be phonemically accurate. During this phase children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers.

Introduction Objectives and criteria for success Revisit and Review Teach Practise Apply Assess learning against criteria

www.parentsintouch.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents www.jollylearning.co.uk www.focusonphonics.co.uk www.syntheticphonics.com

What is Phonics and how do we teach it?