Letters and Sounds Phonics New Marston Primary School Early Years Foundation Stage Conker and Willow Classes
There are seven Areas of Learning in the Foundation Stage as shown below. The teaching of phonics falls into the area of learning called Literacy. Children can then apply their phonics skills to other Areas of Learning. 1. Personal, social and emotional development 2. Physical development 4. Literacy (reading, writing and teaching of phonics) 6. Understanding the World 3.Communication and Language 5. Mathematics 7. Expressive arts and design
All words are made up of sounds. There are 40+ sounds in English, but only 26 letters that are used to represent these sounds. Children need to be fluent at saying the sounds that go with the letters this will enable them to read and write effectively. Phonics is about children knowing how letters link to sounds- c as in cat, ll as in fell, ee as in sheep. Teaching phonics provides children with the step up to word recognition. Automatic reading of all words is the ultimate goal. From a very early stage, children develop awareness of different sounds in spoken language. The aim is to secure essential phonic knowledge and skills so that children progress quickly to independent reading and writing We use a national strategy called Letters and Sounds to deliver our phonics program. The strategy is divided into six phases building on skills and knowledge of previous learning. We also use Jolly Phonics to teach the letter sounds to the children in a multi-sensory and fun way. Young children learn quickly when there is a physical activity involved. By doing an action and singing a song for each letter sound, the children use bodily movements as well as using their ears, eyes and speech to help them remember each letter sound. We recognise that all children learn at a different rate and that all children start school with different life experiences
We use a national strategy for teaching a high quality phonics program called Letters & Sounds. There are 6 phases: Phase 1 : on-going to distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration Phase 2 : Foundation Stage to introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) Phase 3 : Foundation Stage to teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to read and spell simple regular words Phase 4 : Foundation Stage / Year 1 to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants Phase 5 : Year 1 to teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes Phase 6 : Year 2 to develop their skill and automaticity in reading and spelling
to develop language and increase vocabulary through speaking and listening activities to develop phonological awareness to distinguish between sounds This phase is vital for developing children's listening skills. Brilliant listening skills are key to effective learning of letters and sounds to speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control to become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration use sound talk to segment or break up the words into individual phonemes Phase 1 is concerned with the following skills: 1. Tuning into sounds (auditory discrimination) 2. Listening and remembering sounds (auditory memory and sequencing) 3. Talking about sounds (developing vocabulary and language comprehension)
When the children are secure in Phase 1 they have achieved and can do the following: Recall and identify sounds they have heard Discriminate between sounds Remember and repeat a rhythm Choose appropriate words to describe sounds they hear e.g. squeaky, jingly, rustle, crunchy, rattle etc. Identify the initial sounds of words (the sound a word begins with) Distinguish between the differences in vocal sounds Recall a list of objects beginning with the same sound Segment words into phonemes (sounds) Children must keep practising these skills even once they have moved onto Phase 2 and beyond
19 letters are taught (s-a-t-i-p-n-m-d-g-o-c-k-e-u-r-h-b-f-l-including ck, ff, ll and ss ) Learn the letter names and letter sounds and objects that begin with each letter Blend letters and segment words Read VC (vowel consonant) word and CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words e.g. in and pin, it and sit, at and sat Tricky words e.g. the, to, go & no these words are tricky to break down The next 3 pages show how we teach each letter through an action and a song. Ask your child to sing each letter song to you. If they need help, visit YouTube Jolly Phonics songs in order We have already taught letter groups 1,2 & 3 before Christmas. We will teach letter groups 4,5 & 6 after Christmas
Here are some words that can be made using the first set of letters s,a,t,i,p,n. The small circle under each sound is called a sound button. When you touch the sound button can you say the letter sound?
Children entering Phase 3 will know 19 letters and be able to blend phonemes (sounds) to read VC words and segment VC words to spell effectively. Many children will be able to read and spell CVC words. They should be able to blend and segment CVC words orally. 25 more grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught (most are two letters e.g. oa, ai etc.) Continue to practise CVC blending and segmentation and use this knowledge to read and spell two-syllable words and captions Read and spell some more tricky words The next 4 pages illustrate how we teach each of the 25 letter/graphemes. Ask your child to sing each letter song to you. If they need help, visit Youtube Jolly Phonics songs in order. We will teach these letter groups after Christmas.
Here are some words with sound buttons for individual sounds. There are sound lines to show that both the letters represent one sound/phoneme e.g. sh, ee, ch, ur, ch.
Revisit and Review Throughout each phase we continually use this teaching sequence Teach Practise Apply
We hope this pack will be helpful for you and your child. Please do ask if you have any questions. Many thanks, The Foundation Stage Team. Visit the following websites: www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/schools - words and pictures (especially word blender) www.lettersandsounds.com YouTube: Jolly Phonics in order You Tube: Alphablocks correct pronunciation of letter sounds Look at the glossary of terms on the next two pages in this document Play the following games: I spy, read road signs and street names, make rhyming strings (e.g. hat, cat, fat, mat), label objects around your house with Post-it notes, use magnetic letters. Talk to your child about phonics, model speaking and listening and be enthusiastic about their early attempts to read and write!
Phoneme The smallest unit of sound in a word. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English. Phonemes can be put together to make words. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters e.g. t, ai, igh, eigh Grapheme A way of writing down a phoneme. Graphemes can be made up from 1, 2, 3, or 4 letters e.g. p, sh, tch, ough Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence or GPC Knowing a GPC means being able to match a phoneme to a grapheme and vice versa Digraph A grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme) A consonant digraph contains two consonants sh, ck, th, ll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel ai, ee, ar, oy Trigraph A grapheme containing three letters that makes just one sound igh, dge Vowel a, e, i, o, u (5 letters) Consonant b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z (21 letters) VC word - Is a word with two letters, the first letter is a consonant and the second letter is a vowel e.g. go, so, hi, do CVC word Is a word with three letters, the first letter is a consonant, the second letter is a vowel and the third letter is a consonant e.g. cat, hat, dog, hen, pan, hop etc. Alliteration - Is the consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession e.g. licking lovely lemon lollipops.
Oral Blending - This involves hearing phonemes and being able to merge them together to make a word. Children need to be able to develop this skill before they will be able to blend written words. Blending This involves looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of GPCs to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word. This is the basis of reading. Oral segmenting This is the act of hearing a whole word and then splitting it up into the phonemes that make it. Children need to develop this skill before they will be able to segment words to spell them. Segmenting This involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes that make it, using knowledge of GPCs to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order. This is the basis of spelling. Year One Phonics Screening Check The Phonics Screening Check is given to all children during the Summer Term in Year One. It is meant to show how well your child can use the phonics skills they have learned up to the end of Year One and to identify children who may need extra help. The children will be asked to read 40 words. The national expected standard is to read at least 32 words out of 40 correctly.