Unlocking Phonics: Transforming Sound to Speech

1. Letters and Sounds Parent Workshop

2. At Stanah Primary we have a 20 minute letters and sounds session everyday of the week. Phonics at a glance Phonics is...... Skills of segmentation and blending Knowledge of the alphabetic code

3. Phonics consists of..... • Identifying sounds in spoken words. • Recognising the common spellings of each phoneme. • Blending phonemes into words for reading. • Segmenting words into phonemes for spelling.

4. How phonics is taught. The Letters and Sounds programme is split into 6 phases. Phase 1: is taught in nurseries and pre-school settings and consists of exploring and experimenting with sounds.

5. Phase 2: is begun in reception and involves learning the sounds related to each letter and combing these to make simple words e.g. c-a-t, d-o-g, p-e-n

8. Phase 3: • know consonant digraphs: • ch, sh, th, ng • know graphemes: • oo, ee, oa, ai, oi, ur, er, ow, or, ar, igh, ear, air, ure • Apply knowledge of graphemes, phonemes and digraphs to reading and spelling a range of words. • e.g. ch-o-p, sh-ee-t, s-i-ng, b-oi-l

9. Phase 4: • Consolidate previous phases. • Continue to read and spell tricky words. • Applying previous knowledge to segmenting and blending when reading unfamiliar words.

10. Phase 5: • Reading phonetically decodable two- syllable and three- syllable words. • Using alternative ways of pronouncing and spelling the graphemes • e.g. • Alternative spellings: • ay ai a-e • igh ie i-e • oi oy • ow ou • Alternative pronunciation: • magic magpie • chop chef

11. Split diagraphs: • You’ll will probably have learnt this as the magic e • the letter e at the end of the word changes the vowel from it’s letter sound to it’s letter name. • e.g. • came • Pete • time • bone • tune

12. Pseudo words: • Pseudo words are words that have been made up • Their purpose is to encourage the children to apply their letters and sounds knowledge and not rely on word recognition. • e.g. • vap • chee • strom • fowsping

13. Phonics Screening Check. • This is a government test to track how many children are working at phase 5, which is the expected level for the end of year 1. • The test is carried out in June and consists of the child decoding 40 words. 20 real words and 20 pseudo words. It is done on a one to one basis with the class teacher in comfortable environment. • The current pass rate is 32/40. Children who do not achieve a pass at the end of year 1 will be required to take the test again at the end of year 2.

14. Phase 6 Most children will begin this phase in Year 2. This section of phonics focuses on developing the children’s ability to apply their phonics knowledge to learning spelling strategies. They will learn about: Suffixes- letters that can be added to a root word, often to change the tense. e.g. Play- playing Live- living Prefixes- letters that are attached to the beginning of a root word. e.g. Disappear