Presenter’s notes and handouts for phonic subject
knowledge presentation
See also presentation CPD materials on ‘the simple view of reading’ and
materials relating to the Rose Report recommendations in the Subject leader
handbook.
The following materials are to support the implementation of the Primary
Framework for literacy and in particular the Rose Report1 recommendations.
You will need to select, tailor and adapt these materials to meet the specific
needs of your children and staff and the context of your school.
It is not the intention that you adopt all of these materials as they are
presented here. The intention is to provide materials that could contribute to
your ongoing professional development programme for over the next 12 to
24 months.
Decisions on the use of these materials will depend on your school’s
development priorities in literacy, the strand selected from the renewed
Primary Framework and the profile of the identified focus children.
Contents

Introduction (slides 3 to 6)
– Objective
– Phonics – the priority for training
– A phonics quiz
– Enunciation

Some definitions of phonics terminology (slides 7 to 14)
– Phonemes and graphemes
– Blending and segmenting
– Digraphs
– Trigraphs
– Split digraph

Phonics programmes (slides 15 to 17)
– Synthetic phonics
– Key message
– Progression and pace

Phonics subject knowledge (slides 18 to 41)
– Words sometimes wrongly identified as CVC
– Consonant digraphs
1
Independent review of the teaching of early reading, Final report, Jim Rose, March 2006 (DfES 02012006DOC-EN. ISBN 1-84478-684-6)
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– CVC words – clarifying some misunderstandings
– Links with spelling
– Examples of CCVC, CVCC, CCCVC and CCVCC
– A segmenting activity
– Words that may be sorted incorrectly
– Representing phonemes (including activity)
– Spelling
– High frequency words

Handouts and materials
It is important to note that these subject knowledge sessions may require
several additional sessions to complete.
Please note the notation // as in /c/ /t/ is a standard graphic device.
It is important to understand that it refers to the phoneme represented by
those letters, not that particular grapheme – for example /ae/ refers to a
phoneme which could be represented by the letters, a, ay, ai, a-e, eigh, etc.
Introduction
Slides 3 to 6 – Introduction
Set the context for the sessions with reference to the Rose Report
recommendations.
See Section E in the Headteacher booklet and information and resources from
the Subject leader handbook.
These sessions and activities are to support teachers, practitioners and
teaching assistants with core subject knowledge about phonics. While staff
need more than this – for example training on structuring and linking teaching
sessions – core subject knowledge about phonics provides a critical
foundation.
To tailor these materials at specific individuals or groups in school you may
choose to provide staff with the phonics quiz (HO1) prior to these sessions to
gauge the teacher’s, practitioner’s and teaching assistant’s knowledge and
confidence. Do not assume that everyone has the same critical foundation of
knowledge and understanding.
Slide 5 – A phonics quiz
HO1 reproduces this quiz for staff to complete individually. Give plenty of time
for this either in the session or prior to the session (see above).
Explain that you are not going to go through the answers now, but that you will
use these sessions to ensure a shared knowledge and understanding about
phonics across the whole school.
For your information, when this quiz has been used by literacy consultants
with teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants the average scores to
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date are 7/10 for literacy coordinators, 4/10 for teachers or practitioners and
2/10 for teaching assistants. Individual scores though do vary from 0 to 9.
Scores have been close to the average in all groups tested, so subject
knowledge is likely to be an issue in your own school.
Slide 6 – Enunciation
Illustrate enunciation for participants – for example demonstrate how most
consonants should be pronounced in a continuous manner – e.g. ssssss
mmmmmm llllllll nnnnnn shshshsh rrrrrrr zzzzzzzz vvvvvvv.
However, some cannot be said like this (e.g. /c/ /t/ /p/ /b/ /d/ and /g/).
Make the point that /c/ /t/ and /p/ should be enunciated without the voice.
Phonemes wwwwww and yyyyyyyy are not easy but can be attempted.
This is very important. Many errors spring from incorrect enunciation, for
example teachers reporting that children confuse ‘ch’ and ‘tr’. If the ‘ch’ is
enunciated correctly, as one phoneme, rather than ‘chur’, and ‘tr’ clearly as
two phonemes, there is far less likelihood of confusion.
Note any regional pronunciation issues. Many of the sounds (particularly
vowel sounds) can vary slightly according to accent, but they are generally
consistent within the speech of an individual and recognisable by others who
may pronounce them slightly differently.
Some definitions of phonics terminology
Slides 7 and 8 – Phonemes and graphemes
Correct terminology should be introduced from Reception Year onwards. It
has been found that children do not have a problem using these words (in fact
they are often very proud of their ability to do so).
We wouldn’t dream of teaching 3-D shapes to children and using the word
‘ball’ instead of ‘sphere’ or ‘box’ instead of ‘cube’ or ‘cuboid’. The principle with
phonic vocabulary is exactly the same – it’s just that we haven’t, as a
professional body, been used to using these words with children until
relatively recently.
Slides 9, 10 and 11 – Blending and segmenting
Mention that Rose identified blending and segmenting skills as essential
features of quality phonic sessions.
Slide 10 – Oral blending
Evidence in our survey 2005 showed that little teaching of blending happens
in schools, so this will be a shift of emphasis for many teachers or
practitioners given their current practice. Having children practise this orally
without reference to graphemes breaks the process down in a way that will be
very helpful for many children.
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Slide 12 – Digraphs
Thinking back to the phonics quiz, can anyone identify two letters that
teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants often incorrectly classify as
digraphs? (ANSWER: Adjacent consonants, e.g. sp, st, dr, pl.)
Slide 13 – Trigraphs
Thinking back to the phonics quiz, can anyone identify three letters that
teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants often incorrectly classify as
trigraphs? (ANSWER: Adjacent consonants, e.g. spr, spl.)
Slide 14 – Split digraph
A digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent, e.g. in bake the a and the
e are split but work together to make the /ae/ phoneme.
Phonics programmes
Slide 15 – Synthetic phonics
Some key elements of a synthetic phonics programme are as follows.

Grapheme, phoneme correspondences are taught in a clearly defined
incremental sequence.

Children are taught to apply the highly important skill of blending
phonemes in order, all through a word to read it.

Children are taught to apply the skills of segmenting words into their
constituent phonemes to spell.

Phonics is taught discretely.

Phonics is taught as the prime approach in learning to decode (to read)
and to encode (to write or spell) print.

The teaching is fast-paced – ‘most of the letter-sound correspondences,
including the consonant and vowel digraphs, can be taught in the space of
a few months…’ Johnston and Watson, quoted approvingly in the Rose
Report.
Emphasise that synthetic phonics requires critical attention to a focus on
phonics as the critical skill for word recognition.
Quote the Rose Report: ‘…if beginner readers, for example, are encouraged
to infer from pictures the word they have to decode this may lead to their not
realising that they need to focus on the printed word’
Slide 16 – Key message
Remind all staff that the HMI survey drawn on by the Rose Report found that
‘not all schools were clear about exactly what phonic knowledge (letter–sound
correspondences) they expected their pupils to have learned at particular
stages’.
Emphasise that whatever scheme of phonics we as a school choose to use
(and remind them of Rose’s emphasis on fidelity to a single programme or
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scheme) it will be essential that teachers, practitioners and teaching
assistants fully understand the progression set out in that scheme.
Schemes that do not have a full and clear statement of progression (i.e. that
fully describes content, progression through that content and the pace of that
progression) do not provide teachers with the support a scheme should
provide.
Fidelity to a scheme is impossible if the scheme is so loose or imprecise that
no one could know whether they were being faithful to that scheme or not.
Slide 17 – Progression and pace
An effective phonics programme will outline the incremental progression and
the expected pace of learning.
See the Subject leader handbook ‘Guidance for practitioners on progression
and pace in the teaching of phonics’.
Phonics subject knowledge
Slide 18 – Words sometimes wrongly identified as CVC
Thinking back to the phonics quiz, teachers, practitioners and teaching
assistants (and some publishers) often incorrectly include words in this group.
Can anyone identify an example?
Answers could include words containing a digraph made up of one vowel and
one consonant. At first glance these look like CVCs (see slide 18). However,
these words contain vowel digraphs and therefore come at a later stage.
Slide 19 – Consonant digraphs
Further progression is illustrated here involving blending and segmenting
CVCs containing consonant digraphs.
Clarification for presenters: these words are all CVCs – the C, the V, the C
refer to phonemes, not letters, so ‘duck’ is a CVC.
The vowels in CVCs are always short vowels as these are the only ones the
children have been taught yet.
Slide 20 – CVC words – clarifying some misunderstandings
This slide is designed to act as a check of understanding of which words are
CVC words and which are not.
Read the word ‘cat’. Write the word on a flipchart or interactive whiteboard.
Get everyone to segment the phonemes on their fingers.
Then add sound buttons underneath the word, i.e. draw dots under each
sound.
This word has three phonemes (consonant, short vowel, consonant).
Repeat with ‘sir’.
‘Sir’ contains two phonemes and is therefore not a CVC word. Place a cross
next to it).
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Note any regional pronunciation issues. However, even where three
phonemes are heard this word contains a vowel digraph and therefore cannot
be a CVC word.
Repeat with ‘duck’.
Tip: ask participants to watch out for their lip, mouth and throat movements,
which often indicate a change in phoneme.
Slide 21 – Links with spelling
This slide includes words just identified in the last task, plus the word ‘chick’.
Say: You will see that all these words end in double letters. Can anyone
explain why? (ANSWER: You get final ‘ll’, ‘ss’, ‘ff’, ‘zz’, ‘ck’ after a short vowel.
These are the only consonants which double in this position.) Make links to
spelling.
Slide 22 – Examples of CCVC, CVCC, CCCVC and CCVCC
Blend and read each example on the slide.
Refer back to the earlier phonics quiz. Ask participants, reflecting on their
experience, to consider what they think are the most common mistakes some
teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants make with blending and
segmenting these words.
Answers could include: Counting consonant clusters as one sound, for
example in the earlier phonics quiz when segmenting the word ‘strap’,
teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants often count ‘str’ as one
phoneme and if the school has been using analytical phonics, they may count
‘ap’ as a second phoneme. Synthetic phonics, unlike analytical phonics,
focuses on the smallest units of sound in a word.
There are usually two or three phonemes within a number of consecutive
consonants. Children need to be taught to blend and segment these
phonemes within CCVC and CVCC words.
Teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants should not be teaching ‘sl’,
‘sm’, ‘sn’, etc. as units of sound which need to be learned individually – this
takes far too long, is unnecessary and doesn’t improve children’s spelling and
reading skills as quickly.
The key here is applying the generic skill of blending to the phonemes in the
word (using the taught knowledge of sound–spelling correspondences), from
left to right in the order in which they are recorded in the word.
Slides 23 to 28 – A segmenting activity
In this activity participants are going to segment words into phonemes.
Call out the word ‘slip’.
Ask everyone to segment the phonemes on their fingers.
Use the next four slides to illustrate the segmenting of the phonemes.
Give out copies of HO2 (one between two participants). Participants follow the
same procedure to segment the given words into the phoneme frames.
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Slide 29 – Segmenting
This slide shows answers to the task.
Give participants a couple of minutes to check their answers.
Discuss any queries.
Point out that there is a single final ‘l’, ‘f’, ‘k’ after a consonant (these letters
only double after a short vowel).
Another common mistake is to include non-CCVCs or non-CVCCs in work on
adjacent consonants. These are words that are too difficult for children to
blend and segment at this stage, as they contain phoneme–grapheme
correspondences children haven’t yet learned.
Slide 30 – A basic principle
The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way.
In this case the common phoneme is /ur/.
Slide 31 and 32
Ask participants what difficulties they think some may have in reading or
interpreting the information on this chart and the next.
Answers could include the following.
Not knowing what ‘//’ means. As this is a standard graphic device it is
important to understand that it refers to the phoneme represented by those
letters, not that particular grapheme – for example /ae/ refers to a phoneme
(which could be represented by the letters, a, ay, ai, a-e, ei).
‘oo’ is categorised under /ue/ even though it sounds slightly different.
/oo/ therefore represents the sound in ‘book’ not the sound in ‘moon’.
/ow/ could technically represent /oe/ as in ‘bow’ as /oe/ is used to represent
this sound, /ow/ must represent the sound in ‘ground’.
Slide 33 – Activity
Give each pair or group of three participants copies of HO3 (this may be
provided as one sheet of A3 but may come as two sheets of A4), and a bag or
envelope of pre-cut words (Word pack 1).
The task is to sort the words into the correct columns, according to the
phonemes represented by the letters in bold type. Early finishers identify and
write a list of the words which are most likely to cause a problem to teachers
doing a similar task.
When the task is completed distribute HO3 – Answers and give participants
time to consider their answers.
Slide 34 – Words that may be sorted incorrectly
Nearly all these words could be incorrectly sorted according to what the
grapheme looks like, as opposed to the sound it represents, and ‘grass’ could
be sorted differently because of pronunciation variations.
The next slide emphasises the basic principle.
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Slide 35 – The basic principle
Explain that this principle – the same spelling may represent more than one
phoneme – shows itself as a challenge in reading (rather than writing).
Children need to be able to recognise vowel diagraphs as units when they
read words, instead of reading individual letters.
Slide 36 – The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way
This principle shows itself as a challenge in writing (rather than reading).
Children need to know the range of vowel choices for spelling and that in most
words these choices are limited by position in word and frequency of
occurrence. Children should be taught the vowel digraphs in words in which
they appear most frequently and teaching should make explicit the most
probable position in the word of each vowel digraph.
Slide 37
Children need opportunities to investigate these spelling patterns and
generate rules.
Unfortunately, this is not happening in a great many classrooms and this can
cause problems for children, well into Key Stage 2.
Describe the next activity: participants are going to have a go at a spelling
investigation to find out which representation of /ae/ is most likely in initial,
medial and final position in a word.
Slides 38 and 39 – Activity
Give each pair or group of three participants copies of HO4 and Word pack 2.
Underline the grapheme representing the /ae/ phoneme in each word.
Sort the words and formulate two simple rules for representing the /ae/ in
initial or medial position and for the final position.
Alternatively, generate as many words as possible with the /ae/ phoneme in
that you would expect to be in the oral vocabulary of Year 1 and 2 children.
For example ‘day’, ‘pain’, ‘stay’, ‘game’. Write each word on a sticky note,
underline the grapheme representing the /ae/ phoneme in each word and then
sort to formulate two simple rules as above.
Slide 40 – Spelling
HO5 summarises some key rules or patterns relating to spelling choices.
Slide 41 – High frequency words
Emphasise that it is only the exceptions that should be directly taught – some
teachers are wasting time teaching as sight words phonically decodable
words such as ‘went’, ‘am’, etc.
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HO1
Phonics quiz
Was MOST of your teaching experience in: (please circle)
Foundation/KS1
KS2
Both
1. What is a phoneme?
2. How many phonemes are in the word ‘strap’?
3. a) What is a digraph?
b) Give an example.
4. a) What is a CVC?
b) Give an example.
5. Why has ‘hiss’ got ‘ss’ at the end (and not ‘s’)?
6. Why has ‘think’ got a ‘k’ at the end (and not ‘ck’ or ‘c’)?
7. a) What is a trigraph?
b) Give an example.
8. How many phonemes are in the word ‘twenty’?
9. Write down at least four different ways of representing /ae/.
10. What is the best guess when you write /ae/ at the end of a word?
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HO2
WORD
shelf
PHONEMES
dress
think
string
sprint
flick
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HO3 Activity – Word pack 1
/ae/
/ee/
/ie/
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/oe/
/ue/
HO3 – Answers
/ae/
/ee/
/ie/
/oe/
/ue/
angel
field
mine
road
dew
late
me
light
toe
moon
train
sweet
try
stole
cute
lay
meat
find
post
union
eight
misty
tried
grow
blue
these
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Word pack 1 – this needs to be pre-cut, then words shuffled and placed in envelopes
lay
meat
find
post
union
eight
misty
tried
grow
blue
these
field
mine
road
dew
angel
late
me
light
toe
late
moon
train
cute
stole
sweet
try
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HO4
INITIAL AND MEDIAL
FINAL
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Word pack 2 /ae/ Activity
tray
skate
may
chain
stray
ape
pay
paint
they
wait
great
neigh
make
snail
hay
day
ate
stay
way
eight
tray
skate
may
chain
stray
ape
pay
paint
they
wait
great
neigh
make
snail
hay
day
ate
stay
way
eight
tray
skate
may
chain
stray
ape
pay
paint
they
wait
great
neigh
make
snail
hay
day
ate
stay
way
eight
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HO5
PHONIC RULES OR PATTERNS, WHICH MAY BE USEFUL

In English there are 26 letters which represent 44 phonemes. These
phonemes are represented by 140 different letter combinations.

After a short vowel, words end in ‘ss’ instead of ‘s’, ff instead of ‘f’, ll
instead of ‘l’, zz instead of ‘z’ (e.g. hiss, whiff, hill, fizz).
Note: These are the only consonants that double in this position

After a short vowel, words end in ‘ck’ instead of ‘k’ (e.g. lick).

At the end of a word /v/ is usually spelled ‘ve’ (e.g. have, live).

CCVC words: After a short vowel, words end in ‘ss’ instead of ‘s’, ‘ff’
instead of ‘f’, ‘ck’ instead of ‘k’, ‘ll’ instead of ‘l’ (e.g. dress, sniff, block,
frill).

CVCC words: After a consonant, words end in ‘f’ instead of ‘ff’, ‘k’ instead
of ‘ck’ (e.g., shelf, sink). /l/ doesn’t appear in the final position and /s/ only
as a plural (and therefore represented by ‘s’).

After a digraph, words end in ‘f’ instead of ‘ff’, ‘k’ instead of ‘ck’, ‘l’ instead
of ‘ll’ (e.g. surf, park, heel), ‘ce’ or ‘se’ instead of ‘ss’.

Regional pronunciation – (note: this is relevant in areas where ‘path’ is
pronounced ‘parth’):
/ar/ followed by /s/ (e.g. grass), /th/ (e.g. bath) or a consonant cluster (e.g.
plant, ask, clasp) is written ‘a’. Where it is followed by /s/, this is written
‘ss’ (e.g. glass).
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Which representation of each vowel phoneme is most
likely in different positions?
A)
Which representation is most likely in initial, medial and final position
in a monosyllabic word?
Letters in brackets show less likely representations.
Initial and medial position
Final position
ai a-e
ay
ea ee (e-e)
ee e ea (words with 1 syllable)
y (words with 2 or more syllables)
i-e (igh i ie)
y (ie igh)
oa o-e (o ow)
ow (o oe)
oo u-e
ew (oo ue)
ar (a*)
ar
oi
oy
ou ow
ow
ir ur er (ear or)
ir ur er
aw or a (augh ough)
ore aw (oor)
oo u (oul)
–
–
are (air ear)
–
ear eer
* areas of the country in which ‘path’
is pronounced ‘p-ar-th’
The initial or medial position is the most problematic in a monosyllabic word,
as a vowel phoneme can usually be represented in more than one way (e.g.
‘ai’ and ‘a-e’ are equally likely in this position).
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