Phonics Workshop for Infant
Parents
Supporting your child with phonics and reading
Miss Nikki Pearce
13th November 2013
Learning Intentions

To understand the importance of phonics.

To get an idea of how phonics is taught in
school.

To understand the progression through
phonic phases and how to support and develop
children’s learning.

What can I do at home?
Why Phonics?

Independent Review of the Teaching of
Early Reading by Jim Rose in 2006 (Rose
Review)

Reading by Six – how the best schools do
it. (Ofsted Nov 2010)

Year 1 Phonics Screening.
Why Phonics?
Letters and Sounds is recommended.
Six phase teaching programme.
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 crack the code.

Gives us the skills of blending for reading and
segmenting for spelling.
High quality phonics work…

Phonic work is time-limited (phases 2-4) whereas work
on comprehension continues throughout life (phase 6)

Interactive multi-sensory phonic session at their own
level.

A session led by a member of staff of shared reading
and/or shared writing.

Opportunities for independent reading and writing.

Pace and progression is key.
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’.
Technical vocabulary
REMEMBER!
CVC refers to phonemes NOT LETTERS!
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.
Phase 1 - ongoing
To develop language and increase vocabulary through
speaking and listening activities.
 To develop phonological awareness.
 To distinguish between sounds.
 To speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control.
 To become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration.
 Use sound talk to segment words into phonemes.


Example activities - listening walks, dodgems, Silly Soup,
rhyming chants/songs,
Phase 2 – Up to 6 weeks
To introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences



Children know that words are constructed from phonemes
and that phonemes are represented by graphemes.
They have knowledge of a small selection of common
consonants and vowels – only 19!
They blend them together in reading simple CVC words
and segment them to support spelling. – use of magnetic
letters!
Phase 2
Letter Progression (one set a week)
 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 s
Correct Articulation of phonemes is
essential!
Pronunciation - not ‘uh’ on the end – use
soft voice!
Video – Articulation of Sounds (Search on
YouTube)
Articulation
Long oo
spoon
moon
balloon
smoothie
Short oo
cook
book
look
hook
Soft Sound
think
thin
thick
thumb
Spoken Sound
the
that
there
this
This is one reason
why the English
Language is tricky!
Children won’t grasp
this overnight or by
osmosis…they need
to be immersed in an
awareness of
language throughout
the day.
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.
Phase 2 – Example Activities

Sound Buttons

Box of Sounds – children sit in a circle. Place objects in the centre of
the circle. Pass a box containing grapheme cards around the circle singing. Child holding the
box at the end of the song takes out the top card, identifies sound and places it next to the
corresponding object. (Alternately call out a sound for the child to find)

Cross the River
Phase 2 – more ideas!
Pebbles with letters on
 Cutlery drawer organiser – sort objects
by letters.
 Nursery Rhymes
 Water brushes
 Writing on back/floor/wall with finger

Tricky Words
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

Phase 3 – Up to 12 weeks
To teach children one grapheme for each of the 44
phonemes in order to read and spell simple regular
words.




Naming and sounding letters of the alphabet.
Recognise letter shapes and say a sound for each
Hear and say sounds in the order in which they
occur, and read simple words by sounding out and
blending.
Recognise common digraphs and read some high
frequency words.
Phase 3 – Example activities

Full Circle

Buried Treasure

Sentence Substitution

Phoneme Frames
Phase 4
– (4-6 weeks)
To teach children to read and spell words containing
adjacent consonants and polysylabic words.


Teaching should focus on the skills of blending and
segmenting words containing adjacent consonants.
They should not be taught in word families such as
spot, spit, spin as the children will treat ‘sp’ as one unit.
Phase 4
Children now have the ability to blend and segment
therefore they are moving beyond simple cvc words to cvcc,
ccvc, ccvcc and cccvc.
b l a ck
ccv c
s t r o ng
cccv c
felt
cvcc
blank
ccvcc
Phase 4 – Example activities

Yes/No

Phoneme Count – prepare boxes/gift bags labelled with a
number. Sort objects/words into boxes according to how many units of sound the
word has in it.
Phase 5
To teach children to recognise 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
Seeing themselves as writers!
ay
Phase 5 – Example activities

Word Relay

Human Dominoes
When children are secure at phase 5
they can move on to
‘Support for Spelling’
Year 1 Phonics Screening






A screening check for year one to encourage schools to
pursue a rigourous 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.
What does it look like?
Tracking and Progress





Children are assessed briefly 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
across the Infants.
End of phase progress checks.
Year 1 Phonics screening check.
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.
 Lots of activities online for children to practice their
phonic knowledge.

Phonics games websites

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com

http://www.ictgames.com
Thank You
Please complete the feedback form to help us improve the
Phonics Workshop for next time.