Phonics at Merstham Primary

Transcription

1 Phonics at Merstham Primary

2 What is phonics? Phonics is the strategy we use to teach children to read and write. It teaches the children to listen carefully to identify phonemes that make up words. The children are encouraged to use skills learnt in phonics in other session where reading and writing features. In phonics sessions, children are taught 3 main things: - Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence - What does a sound look like? - Segmenting Breaking words down into the individual phonemes. - Blending Taking phonemes and blending them to form a word. How do we teach phonics at Merstham? Phonics is taught across a series of phases from 1 6. At Merstham we begin our phonics sessions in Nursery with Phase 1 activities. As the phases progress, the expected phonic knowledge of each child increases. Children are therefore grouped across Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 according to their ability. By ensuring children are working at the correct phase for their ability, we are able to support them to develop their skills. Phase One (Nursery / Reception) Activities are divided into seven aspects, including environmental sounds, instrumental sounds, body sounds, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and finally oral blending and segmenting. Each activity encourages the children to develop their listening and sound recognition skills. Phase 1 initial phoneme matching Sound play What do we have in here? Emphasise first sound b-b-b-box, d-d-d-dog. Alliteration and tongue Twisters nice Nel needs a new necklace. I spy a p-e-g Where s your c-a-t? Simon says clap your h-a-n-d-s, nod your h-ea-d, touch your ch-i-n.

3 Phase Two (Reception) up to 6 weeks Learning 19 letters of the alphabet and one sound for each. Blending sounds together to make words. Segmenting words into their separate sounds. Beginning to read simple captions. Phase 2 Phonemes Use magnetic letters on fridge or tin tray. Make little words together using sounds already taught. Building up and breaking down words. Encouraging writing with whiteboards, pens, magic boards, glitter or foam trays. Having or making an alphabet poster. Carrying on with games from phase 1. Phase Three (Reception) up to 12 weeks The remaining 7 letters of the alphabet, one sound for each. Graphemes such as ch, oo, th representing the remaining phonemes not covered by single letters. Reading captions, sentences and questions. On completion of this phase, children will have learnt the "simple code", i.e. one grapheme for each phoneme in the English language. Phase 3 Phonemes Sing the alphabet song. Play I spy with the letter names and phonemes. Continue to use magnetic letters with the new graphemes. Further practise blending and segmenting words. Encouragement and praise of reading and writing focusing on skills child is using. Snap / Pairs / Writing games with tricky words.

4 Phase Four (Reception) 4 to 6 weeks No new grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught in this phase. Children learn to blend and segment longer words with adjacent consonants, e.g. swim, clap, jump. Examples of Phase 4 CVCC words / Key words Practise reading and spelling CVCC and CCVC words at home as well as CVC ones. Make up silly or nonsense words. Make up captions and phrases for your child to read and write (a silver star, crunch the crisps). Look at and read words in the environment (shop names, food or toy packaging). Read together, books, comics, signs, street names, shops, letters. Phase Five (Throughout Year 1) Now we move on to the "complex code". Children learn more graphemes for the phonemes which they already know, plus different ways of pronouncing the graphemes they already know. Phase 5 phonemes / Key words Continued practise reading and spelling CVCC, CCVC and 2 or 3 syllable words at home. Look for different graphemes and alternative spellings in reading books. Make up captions and sentences for your child to read and write. Model writing with them (lists, cards, invitations). Look at and read words in the environment (shop names, food or toy packaging) Playing word games like hangman and scrabble.

5 Phase Six (Throughout Year 2 and beyond) Working on spelling, including prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters etc. Examples of Phase 6 words......for suffixes -s and -es...for suffixes -ing, -ed, -ful, -ly, -est, -er, -ment, -ness and -en Continued practise reading and spelling of multi-syllable words at home. Look for different graphemes and alternative spellings in reading books. Playing word games like hangman and scrabble. Continued talk with your child about their reading and writing, encouraging and praising skills and development. Images from Phonics Screening Check The Phonic Screening Check is a government test. The test is carried out at the end of Year 1 and its purpose is to assess whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. Children are given a combination of 40 real, and non-real or fake, words to decode. Children who struggle to meet the national standard will be provided with additional support and will also be retested in Year 2.

6 Terminology Phoneme: Distinct units of sound in language e.g. d, p, a. Grapheme: The written form of a phoneme. Digraph: A pair of characters used to write one phoneme e.g. wh, ph, sh. Trigraph: A group of three characters which represent one phoneme e.g. tch, igh, ure. Blend: To form a word using two or more phonemes. Segment: To separate the individual phonemes within a word. Suffix: Placed at the end of a root word to create a new word e.g. end (ing), fix (ed). (Information about Phonics) Useful Websites DfE Jolly Phonics Jolly Phonics Songs - (Activities for your children) Letters & Sounds Phonics Play ICTGames BBC Bitesize - phonics/play