Learning to Read,
Reading to Learn with Phonics
Letters and Sounds is a high quality
systematic phonics programme
that teaches children the skills needed
to read and write in English.
Some technical bits…
Phoneme
Grapheme
Digraph
The sound of a letter or letters put together
The visual representation of a sound
Two letters together that make one sound: ch, sh,
Trigraph
Three letters together that make one sound: ear, air,
Blending
Putting the sounds together to make a word (reading)
Segmenting
Breaking the word down to the individual sounds
(spelling)
High Frequency Words that keep occurring in everyday text
Words
eg. as, in, on
Tricky Words
High frequency words that cannot be sounded out
eg. the, you, go
Six phases to be reached by end of Year 2:
Nursery
Reception
Year 1
Year 2
Phase 1 – Playing with sounds, singing, musical instruments and body
percussion, rhyming, alliteration, oral blending and segmenting
Phase 2 – Introduces 23 sounds divided into five sets, children
learning one set per week, learning to form letters and to blend and
segment. In addition children learn the high frequency words as they
learn the sounds, and they learn one tricky word a week.
Phase 3 – Introduces 8 sounds divided into two sets, then moves on to
more complex digraphs and trigraphs such as sh and air. In addition
children continue learning more high frequency words and tricky
words.
Phase 4 – Consolidating what the children have already learnt, giving
them more opportunities for blending and segmenting and practise for
reading and spelling the high frequency words. Children apply what
they have already learnt to practice reading and writing sentences.
Phase 5 – Broadening knowledge of the phonemes. Children will learn
new graphemes and alternative spellings and pronunciations for the
graphemes they already know. Children continue to learn more high
frequency and tricky words.
Phase 6 – Children learn to become fluent readers. Children get
introduced to suffixes (word endings), prefixes (word beginnings) and
tenses. Children learn the spelling rules for these and begin to gain
more independence in writing and understanding marking/editing their
own work.
A typical phonics session…
Revisit and Review
Teach
Practice
Apply
Recap sounds, words and spelling rules already
taught
New sound/spelling rule, through learning to read or
write it
Reading or writing words with the new sound or
spelling rules through games and activities
Read or write a sentence using high frequency
words and words containing the new letter/spelling
rule.
Phase 5: Alternative spellings
In the English language there are 31 phonemes that have alternative
spellings, such as the /a/ phoneme, which has six alternative spellings:
ay
play
eigh
eight
grey
ey
pain
ai
game
a- e
reindeer
ei
Phase 5: Alternative pronunciations
Just as you thought it can’t get any trickier than that!
There are also 15 graphemes that have alternative pronunciations, for
example the following phonemes can be pronounced in three or four
different ways:
/ch/
chin school chef
/u/
but
unit
put
/a/
apron
last
was hat
Phase 6: Spelling rules
At this stage children will be learning the rules for spelling words with
suffixes for example:
What happens to a root word when you add a suffix to it
Root Word:
Drop the /e/ add
the suffix
Change the
/y/to an /i/ add
the suffix
Hop
Develop
Just add the
suffix
Hopped
Happy
Frame
Double
consonant
add the
suffix
Happiest
Framed
Development
Phase 6: Past, present and future tense…
There are some irregular verbs that need to change completely in
order to change the tense
e.g:
Irregular Verbs
Past Tense
Go
Went
See
Saw
Say
Said
Is
Was
Do
Did
Keep
Kept
Find
Found
How you can help at home:
•
Make sure you pronounce the sounds correctly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s
‘Articulation of Phonemes’
•
You can learn the Jolly Phonics actions and songs for each phoneme with your child:
‘Jolly Phonics’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djz82FBYiug&list=PLE943AE28798B8B3C
•
Support correct letter formation
•
High frequency and tricky words to be practised both in reading and writing
•
Encourage spelling phonetically using phoneme frames but let children know it is okay
to make mistakes!
b.
•
r. ow
__ n.
Listening to your child read at home. Reading books sent home each week, audio library
books for your child to listen to and enjoy. And don’t forget