Phun with Phonics!
th
24
Wednesday
November
2012
Aims of the workshop:
• To understand what phonics is
• To understand how phonics is taught at
East Wichel Community Primary School
• To understand what is expected at each
Letters and Sounds phase
• To understand how to help your child at
home
The Rose Review
• An independent review of the teaching of early reading
• Carried out in 2005 by Jim Rose, former HMI director at
Ofsted
• This included the role of synthetic phonics
Recommendations:
• Best and most direct route to becoming a skilled reader
and writer is a systematic approach- synthetic phonics
• Phonic work is essential for the development of writing,
especially spelling
• When teaching young children, they must be taught how
reading and writing are related
So what is Phonics?
Since the Rose Review, phonics has become a
widely used method of teaching children to
read and decode words.
Sessions use a variety of different approaches to
engage children and ensure their individual
learning styles have been catered for.
Phonics is about learning letter sounds NOT
the letter names.
So what is phonics? (continued)
Phonics is a combination of skills and
knowledge. Children need to understand the
skill of segmentation and blending, and have
the knowledge of the alphabetic code.
We use two schemes which complement each
other – Jolly Phonics and Letters and Sounds
As a result of the Rose Review, phonics is now
taught in six distinct phases as set out in the
Letters and Sounds document.
Jolly Phonics is a scheme used in FS1 (Nursery) and
FS2 (Reception) classes when children are first
introduced to phonics
When the children learn each sound, they will hear a
‘Jolly Story’, sing a ‘Jolly Jingle’ or a ‘Jolly Song’ and
will learn an action to help them remember it
There are actions for individual sounds e.g. /t/ or /s/
and digraphs /ai/ or /sh/
Key Vocabulary
Children will learn to use the words ‘phoneme’
and ‘grapheme’ confidently
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound e.g.
‘jet ‘has three phonemes /j/e/t/
Graphemes are the letters that represent the
phoneme. A grapheme could be one letter, two
letters or more than two letters e.g. /ch/, /oa/,
/ear/ or /igh/.
The Six Phases of Letters and Sounds:
Phase 1 (pre-school)
Distinguishing between sounds in the
environment and phonemes
Begin showing an awareness of rhyme and
alliteration
Exploring and experimenting with sounds
and words
Discriminating speech sounds in words
7 key aspects – ‘eibravo’
Activity 1
Listen to the following sounds. Can you
recognise any environmental sounds?
Did any of the sounds you heard match the
pictures below?
Any questions so far?
Phase 2
Introduce individual sounds
Set 1 – s a t p
Set 2 – i n m d
Set 3 – g o c k
Set 4 – e ck u r
Set – h b f ff l ll ss
During the teaching of phonics, phonemes are
articulated clearly and precisely
An ‘uh’ should not appear at the end of sounds
Phase 2 continued
During Phase 2, the children are introduced to a new sound each
day (four times a week)
They are taught the correct formation of each letter sound and
where to begin the formation through a number of multisensory activities
During the fifth session of the week children will be learning to
segment sounds (sound out)and to blend (read the whole
word)to read words including CVC words (consonant vowel
consonant)
Children are taught to use soundbuttons or robot talk.
Can you read the words below using soundbuttons or Robot Talk?
‘tap’, ‘pit’, ‘sin’, ‘nap’, ‘vop’, ‘mub’
Activity 2
The children are taught to use cursive writing. Each
letter sound begins with a ‘whoosh in’ and a ‘whoosh
out’.
We would like you to practise writing the sounds
from Sets 1-5 in either the sand, using the chalk and
chalkboards or on a whiteboard. If you would like to,
you can practise writing them on your partner’s back
using your ‘magic writing finger’.
Use the phonic mats in front of you to help.
Activity 3
Find three pictures around the room that
begin with the initial sound ‘t’.
Now stand by the sound that your name
begins with. Do you already know the action
that accompanies that sound?
Phase 2 actions
We are now going to show you the actions for
each of the phonemes in the Phase 2 sets.
s a t p i n m d g o c k e ck u r h b f ff
l ll ss
Pseudo words
Children are taught to read real words and
pseudo words (nonsense words).
For example ‘hep’, ‘vel’, ‘sep’, ‘mear’ and ‘hain’.
Dragon's Den
Any questions so far?
Phase 3
Children continue to learn individual letter
sounds and a range of digraphs and trigraphs.
Digraphs are a pair of letters that form one
phoneme (sound).
Trigraphs are a group of three letters
representing one phoneme (sound).
For example, ‘igh’, ‘air’ and ‘ure’.
Phase 3 continued
The children continue to segment and blend
words but these may contain digraphs and
trigraphs.
For example, ‘rain’, ‘deep’, and ‘chop’.
Activity 4
Phoneme Frames
Phase 3 actions
We are now going to show you the actions
for each of the phase 3 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
Phase 4
This is a consolidation unit where children
will revisit all of the phase 2 and phase 3
sounds. There is an emphasis on reading cvcc
and ccvc words (consonant and vowel)and
writing captions containing these words.
Children begin to read captions containing
cvcc and ccvc words, as well as words
containing digraphs and trigraphs.
Activity 6
With a partner (or by yourself if you would prefer),
sound out the words below to read the sentence. This
has been written phonetically and will show you how
children begin to decode, through a segmentation
and blending process, the words in the texts they are
reading.
Write the sentence below correctly on your
whiteboard.
ai hors dus not haf fngrs Vay haf teef
wich eetgrars . Yoo can ried horsz froo
forsts.
Phase 5
During phase 5 children learn the alternative
spellings to a range of sounds. They learn to
recognise split digraphs such as ‘a-e’, ‘e-a’ and
‘i-e’. This describes a letter that splits – during
pronunciation.
An example of this is ‘a-e’ which when used in
words such as ‘cake’ and ‘take’, the k letter
separates the digraph ‘ae’, resulting in an ‘ai’
sound being formed.
Activity 7
Can you put the pictures into the correct
column?
ie
igh
i-e
Phase 6
Children should:
• Learn about past tense
• Learn about rules for adding suffixes (word
endings)
• Develop strategies for spelling ‘tricky words’ones that are not phonetically decodable
Activity 8
A spelling strategy that the children enjoy is
making up mnemonics. For example:
People – people eat orange peel like elephants
Have you used a mnemonic to remember how
to spell a word? Can you think of one for the
word ‘because’?
Year 1 Screening Test
• A test of 40 words made up of real and nonsense words
• Designed to see which graphemes children recognise and well they
can segment and blend
• Last year was the first year that the phonics screening test has
taken place in all Year 1 classes
• There is a specific week that the tests will be carried out (June
2013).
• It is up to the school to decide how and where the tests will be
administered
• Results are sent to the Local Authority
• The school will report to parents whether or not their child has
met the required standard
• There is an opportunity to retake the test in June of Year 2 for
any child who has not passed the test during Year 1.
Year 1 Screening Test continued...
We will now watch a short video clip designed
for teachers – this will show you what the test
will be like for the children.
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teach
ingandlearning/assessment/keystage1/a002
00415/year-1-phonics-screening-checkmaterials
How can you help at home?
• FS1 – expose your child to a range of sounds. These
can include musical and environmental. Allow
children to develop their speaking and listening skills.
• FS2 – continue to complete ‘Snazzy Sounds’
activities. Allow opportunities for your child to
segment and blend cvc words using the sounds they
have already learnt. Practice recognising and reading
‘tricky words’. E’g. cut out words from a newspaper or
write these out using magnetic letters on your fridge.
Have a look at our activity table for ideas.
How can you help at home?
Year 1 –
• Encourage your child to read a range of familiar and
unfamiliar words confidently by applying the skills
they have learnt in phonics.
• Practise recognising digraphs, trigraphs, single sounds
and tricky words.
• Support your child in spelling familiar and unfamiliar
words.
• Encourage your child to practise their phonic skills
using some of the online games that we have
recommended (see our website).
Have a look at our activity table for ideas.
Any questions?
Thank you all for listening.
Please could you spare five minutes to complete
the evaluation forms on your tables? Thank you!
We hope you have found this workshop useful? If
you have ever got any concerns, please don’t
hesitate to speak to either one of us. 
Miss Drewitt and Miss Singh