Supporting your child with phonics and reading Ms Rachel Fields 30 th September 2016
Learning Intentions To understand the importance of phonics. To get an idea of how phonics is taught at Orchard. To understand the progression through phonic phases and how to support and develop children s learning. What can I do at home?
Why Phonics? For most children, high-quality, systematic phonic work should start by the age of five, taking full account of professional judgments of children's developing abilities and the need to embed this work within a broad and rich curriculum. This should be preceded by pre-reading activities that pave the way for such work to start. The best phonics teaching is characterised by planned structure, fast pace, praise and reinforcement, perceptive responses, active participation by all children and evidence of progress. Year 1 Phonics Screening
Why Phonics? Letters and Sounds is recommended by DFES (Dept for Ed and Skills) Six phase teaching programme (EFS Infants)
Why Phonics? The aim is to secure essential phonics knowledge and skills so that children can progress quickly to independent reading and writing. Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to understand the code. Develops the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.
Technical vocabulary A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. Eg. t ai igh A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. Written representation of a sound which may consist of 1 or more letters eg. The phoneme s can be represented by the grapheme s (sun), se (mouse), c (city), sc or ce (science) Alliteration is the consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession.
Technical vocabulary A digraph is two letters, which make one sound. A consonant digraph contains two consonants sh th ck ll A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel ai ee ar oy A split digraph is a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make) A trigraph is three letters, which make one sound. E.g. igh dge
Technical vocabulary Oral Blending hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging them together to make a spoken word (no text is used) for example, when a teacher calls out b-u-s, the children say bus. Blending recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p, and merging or synthesising them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word cup. Segmenting identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound to form the word him.
Summary of Phases Phase 1 (on-going) To distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. Phase 2 (6 weeks) To introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Phase 3 (12 weeks) To teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to spell simple regular words. Phase 4 (4-6 weeks) To read and spell words containing adjacent consonants. Phase 5 (in Yr1) To teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes. Phase 6 (in Yr2) To develop their skill and automaticity in reading and writing.
What are the phonemes children learn? Phase 1 Aspect 1: General sound discrimination environmental sounds Aspect 2: General sound discrimination instrumental sounds Aspect 3: General sound discrimination body percussion Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme Aspect 5: Alliteration Aspect 6: Voice sounds Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting
Phase 1 Let s play!
Phase 2 Let s Practise! Set 1: s a t p Set 2: i n m d Set 3: g o c k Set 4: ck e u r Set 5: h b f, ff l, ll ss
Phase 2 Let s play! Terence s Triathletes
Phase 3 Set 6: j v w x Set 7: y z, zz qu ch sh th ng ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur ow oi ear air ure er
Phase 3 Let s play! Countdown look food road right seem sail boot bait
Phase 4 Children entering Phase Four will be able to represent each of 42 phonemes by a grapheme, and be able to blend phonemes to read CVC words and segment CVC words for spelling. They will know letter names and be able to read and spell some tricky words. The purpose of this phase is to consolidate children s knowledge of graphemes in reading and spelling words. Automatic reading of all words decodable and tricky is the ultimate goal.
Phase 5 To teach children to recognize and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught. Teaching the long vowel phonemes Read and spell phonetically decodable 2/3 syllable words e.g. bleating, frogspawn, shopkeeper. Choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes when spelling words. Recognise an increasing number of high frequency words automatically. Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts ai a-e ay Seeing themselves as writers!
Phase 6 By the beginning of Phase Six, children should know most of the common grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPCs). They should be able to read hundreds of words, doing this in three ways: reading the words automatically if they are very familiar; decoding them quickly and silently because their sounding and blending routine is now well established; decoding them aloud. Children s spelling should be phonemically accurate, although it may still be a little unconventional at times. Spelling usually lags behind reading, as it is harder. During this phase, children become fluent readers and increasingly accurate spellers
Teaching Sequence Revisit and Review Recently and previously learned phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and blending and segmenting skills. Teach New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting. Practise New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting. Apply New knowledge and skills while reading/writing.
Tricky Words taught explicitly Phrases to represent the word. E.g. silly ants in dustbins said. Jumping up to hit the word Stepping on the stairs Matching pairs game Regular practice Teach the word explicitly
Year 1 Phonics Screening A screening check for year one to encourage schools to pursue a rigorous phonics programme. Aimed at identifying the children who need extra help are given the support. Assesses decoding skills using phonics 40 items to be read (20 real words, 20 pseudo words) If children do not pass in Year 1 they have to retake the test at the end of Year 2.
Tracking and Progress Children are assessed at the end of each session to ensure understanding and good progression. Children are assessed against a progress tracking grid. Children move teaching groups to accommodate their need and ability we stream the children by phase End of phase progress checks. Year 1 Phonics screening check May/June
How can I help? - Reading Books Your child will be bringing home two reading books each week. Talk about the book, the character, what is happening in the story, predict what may happen next. Encourage a love of reading not a chore! Phonics Book to support the phonics learnt at school. Reading Book to encourage children to develop other reading skills such as using pictures and reading on.
What else can I do at home? Ask your child to find items around the house that represent particular sounds, i.e. oo - spoon bedroom Play matching pairs with key words or individual sounds/pictures. Key words on the stairs Play tricky word bingo Flashcard letters and words how quickly can they read them? Notice words/letters in the environment. Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and about. REMEMBER: Phonics is not the only skill needed to become a fluent reader. Please continue to read with your child each night and encourage them to: Sound out Re-read to check it makes sense. Use pictures for clues. Ask questions about the book.
Phonics websites http://www.letters-and-sounds.com http://www.ictgames.com http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeindex.htm http://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7- years/letters-and-sounds http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/phonics/play/
Thank You Please complete the feedback form to help us improve the Phonics Workshop for next time.