Phonics How to help at home ST NICHOLAS CE (VC) FIRST SCHOOL

1. PhonicsHow to help at homeST NICHOLAS CE (VC) FIRST SCHOOL

2. Phonics is all about using … knowledge of the alphabet skills for reading and spelling + Learning phonics will help your child to become a good reader and writer.

3. Phonics Scheme • At St Nics, we teach the Letters and Sounds programme using Phonic Bug and Jolly Phonics resources across Key Stage 1 and the EYFS. In KS2, children who have not fully grasped all the necessary sounds will need consolidation of phonics skills. Where they are secure with these sounds and skills, they go on to learn spelling rules and spelling patterns.

4. PHONICS • Correct pronunciation • Correct vocabulary • We all need to use the same language at home and at school. • Little and often is the key. It does not have to be formal. • Link it to your child’s interests.

5. What it all means…PHONEME • The smallest unit of sound in a word. • There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

6. The 44 phonemes

7. GRAPHEME • Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

8. 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’ • - Using sound buttons

9. Sound Buttons . . . . . _ . . _

10. SEGMENTING • ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out • The opposite of blending • Robot arms

11. shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes • dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes • sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes • string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

12. Once children are good with single phonemes… • DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ll ss zz ch ee oa ai • TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh dge The importance of knowledge of letter names.

13. Tricky Words There are many words that cannot be blended or segmented because they are irregular. the was said you some • Words that are not phonically decodeable • e.g. was, the, I • Some words are not decodable until their sounds are taught during phases 3 or 5, e.g. ‘her’ or ‘out’.

14. Glossary: • Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that are found within a word • Grapheme: The spelling of the sound e.g. Th • Diagraph: Two letters that make one sound when read • Trigraphs: Three letters that make one sound • CVC: Stands for consonant, vowel, consonant. • Segmenting is breaking up a word into its sounds. • Blending : Putting the sounds together to read a word • Tricky words: Words that cannot easily be decoded.

15. Every day the children have a 30 minute sessions of phonics. • Fast paced approach • Lessons encompass a range of games, songs and rhymes. Each lesson follows a recap, teach, practise and apply approach. • There are 6 phonics phases which the children work through at their own pace Daily Phonics

16. Phase 1 – Nursery. Develops 7 aspects. Skills that are required to understand and use phonics effectively. Phase 2 – Nursery/Reception. Introduces most commonly used sounds in order and practises the skills of blending and segmenting VC, CVC words and non-words. Phase 3 – Reception. Introduces digraphs and some trigraphs, practises letter names and skills of segmenting and blending in order to read and write simple sentences. Phase 4 – End Reception/Year 1. Practises learnt phonemes and introduces children to segmenting and blending words with consonant blends e.g. CCVC trip and CVCC jump. Phases 5 and 6 continue to develop children’s phonics skills throughout Key Stage 1.

17. Phase 1:Getting ready for phonics 7 aspects focusing on • Environmental Sounds • Instrumental Sounds • Body Percussion • Rhythm and rhyme • Alliteration • Voice sounds

18. How can I help at home? • Talking and Listening. • Reading with and to your child • Nursery rhymes, songs, action rhymes. • Add sound effects to stories. • Music and movement: rhythm, guess the instrument. • Talking about sounds: listening walks, loud/soft, high/low, silly noises. • Speaking & listening: silly sentences “Happy Harry hops”, mimics, animal sounds.

19. Phase 2:Learning phonemes to read and write simple words • Children will learn their first 19 phonemes: Set 1: s a t p Set 2: i n m d Set 3: g o c k Set 4: ck (as in duck) e u r Set 5: h b l f ff (as in puff) ll (as in hill) ss (as in hiss) • They will use these phonemes to read and spell simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC) words: sat, tap, dig, duck, rug, puff, hill, hiss All these words contain 3 phonemes.

20. Phase 3:Learning the long vowel phonemes • Children will enter phase 3 once they know the first 19 phonemes and can blend and segment to read and spell CVC words. • They will learn another 26 phonemes: • j, v, w, x, y, z, zz, qu • ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er • They will use these phonemes (and the ones from Phase 2) to read and spell words: chip, shop, thin, ring, pain, feet, night, boat, boot, look, farm, fork, burn, town, coin, dear, fair, sure

21. Phase 4:Introducing consonant clusters: reading and spelling words with four or more phonemes • Children move into phase 4 when they know all the phonemes from phases 2 and 3 and can use them to read and spell simple words (blending to read and segmenting to spell). • Phase 4 doesn’t introduce any new phonemes. • It focuses on reading and spelling longer words with the phonemes they already know. • These words have consonant clusters at the beginning: spot, trip, clap, green, clown …or at the end: tent, mend, damp, burnt …or at the beginning and end!trust, spend, twist

22. Phase 5 • Teach new graphemes for reading • ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew, oe, au, a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e Learn alternative pronunciations of graphemes (the same grapheme can represent more than one phoneme): Fin/find, hot/cold, cat/cent, got/giant, cow/blow, tie/field, eat/bread, farmer/her, hat/what, yes/by/very, chin/school/chef, out/shoulder/could/you. Teaching children to understand that the same sound can be written in different ways e.g. burn, first, term, heard, work

23. Teaching the split digraph tie time toe tone cue cube pie pine

24. When reading or spelling, encourage your child to think about what looks or sounds “right”. e.g The clown was sad. My book was wet. • Have fun trying out different options…wipe clean whiteboards are good for trying out spellings. • tray trai • rain rayn • boil boyl • boy boi • throat throwt • snow snoa

25. Phase 6 • Phase 6 focuses on spellings and learning rules for spelling alternatives. Children look at syllables, base words, analogy and mnemonics e.g Sally Anne is dancing = said • Children might learn about past tense, rules for adding ‘ing’ and irregular verbs • - ‘tion’ and ‘sion’ words • ..\

26. Phonics Assessment At St Nics we assess our children and monitor their acquisition of sounds, as well as the skills with which to apply those sounds in reading and writing. National Phonic Screen was introduced in 2012 and is carried out each year during June.

27. What is the phonic screen? • It comprises of a list of 40 words and nonsense words. It will assess phonics skills and knowledge learnt through reception and year 1. Your child will read one-one with a teacher. It will be your child’s current teacher or a reception teacher, so it is a familiar face. • Your child will read up to 4 words per page and they will probably do the check in 10-15 minutes. They will be asked to ‘sound out’ a word and blend the sounds together. The check is very similar to tasks the children already complete during phonics lessons.

28. What are Nonsense or Pseudo words and why are they included? • These are words that are phonetically plausible but not actual words with an associated meaning e.g. brip, snorb. • These words are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using phonic skills and not their memory. The pseudo words will be shown to your child with a picture of an alien. The children will be asked what the aliens name is by reading the word. This will make the check a bit more fun and provides the children with a context for the nonsense word. Crucially it does not provide any clues, so your child has to be able to decode it. Children generally find nonsense amusing so they will probably enjoy reading these words.

29. Supporting Early Writing Allow your child to do phonetical writing rather than copy writing – develops their independence as writers and provides the opportunity to apply skills. Can do books. Real opportunities. Praise their attempts – even if it looks like scribble!

30. Phases of Early Writing -Mark making -Making and ascribing some meaning. -Clear distinction between pictures and marks for writing. -Letter like marks. -Recognisable, random letters to communicate meaning. (often from name) -Initial sounds (may be followed by random letters) -Main sounds – consonants e.gbbs – babies -Phonetically plausible attempts at complex words and simple CVC words and HFWs spelt correctly. E.gcatpla, bin, to.

31. Play – based, or real-life opportunities to use their developing skills – writing shopping lists, diaries, penpals, role play, spotting letters and words in the environment around them. Supporting your child’s learning at home. Reading practise and encouraging a love of books – visit the library, enjoy sharing favourite stories borrowed from school or those you have at home, and of course, practising reading through the ORT or Phonic Bug books. Letter formation and High Frequency Words. Phonics practise – make the actions and sounds to match the written letter, sing the alphabet – we are learning letter sounds AND names, find the correct letter when they hear a sound, encourage children to listen for sounds at the beginning of words. Play blending and segmenting games.

32. Now you have the knowledge…. • Play lots of sound and listening games with your child. • Read as much as possible to and with your child. • Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’.

33. Useful websites • www.parentsintouch.co.uk • www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents • www.jollylearning.co.uk • www.focusonphonics.co.uk • www.syntheticphonics.com

34. Bug Club eBooks Each child has their own login details to a website where they can read eBooks and practise their sounds and skills. www.bugclub.co.uk

35. Don’t forget… Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents.