The Aim:
 To recap what phonics is and why it is important for your
child
 Recap basic of concepts and terminology
 Focus on how we teach phonics at St Mary’s through 6
phases
 How you can help your child at home
Why do we do phonics?
 Phonics is the foundation of the children being able to
become successful readers and writers.
 The children need to be able to segment and blend different
words to be able to read fluently and to be able to write in
full sentences.
 Phonics feeds into all areas of the curriculum
26 Letters – 40+ Phonemes and Graphemes
Video’s
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xv86tGhyPI
•Articulation of phonemes
•Training Videos
Phonic Concepts and Terminology
Concept/Terminology
Explanation
Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound in a word.
E.G – Strap – 5 phonemes
Grapheme
Digraph
The letter or letters that represent a phoneme.
Split Diagraph
The two letters are not adjeacent but they still
make one sound
For example Make Pete Home Kite June
Trigraph
Three letters which make one sound
For example – igh, air, ure, ear
Two letters that make one sound – For example
– sh, ch, th and ai, ee, oo
Segmenting
• Segmenting is used for reading and writing
• Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word
• (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters or
each sound to form the word ‘him’.
Blending
•Recognising the letter sounds in a written word (used for reading)
•Segmenting them - For example c-u-p,
•Then pushing the sounds back together in the order in which
they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’.
How do we teach segmenting and blending
In class we use a series of hand
movements to segment and blend.
The children start with their hands close together. As
they segment their hands move outwards – like they
are chopping up a word.
When they are ready to blend they class as they push
the sounds back together.
Now its your turn
Lets have a go together as segmenting and blending
theses words.
Frog
Ship
Night
Make
Phonic Principles
• CVC Words – Consonant/Vowel/Consonant
•Examples – cat, dog, hit, run, man
• Words sometimes wrongly identified as CVC.
Bow, few, saw, her
• CCVC, CVCC, CCCVC and CCVCC words.
• b l a ck
•ccvc
s t r o ng
cccvc
•felt
•cvcc
blank
ccvcc
How we teach phonics
 Short discrete session – Daily
Interactive teaching
Discrete phonic/spelling session (based on 20 minute session)
 Review – practise previously learned letters/spelling rules (3-5 mins)
 Teach – new grapheme/phoneme correspondence (5mins)
– blending and segmenting
– tricky words/HFW
 Practise – new phoneme/grapheme correspondences (5 mins)
 Apply – read or write captions (5 mins)
Phonics Phases
We are following Government guidance with regards to 6 phases of
phonics teaching.
This six phase teaching programme focuses on high quality phonic
work. The intention is to “…equip children who are 5 with the phonic
knowledge and skills they need to become fluent readers by the age
of 7.”
By the end of Year Two children should have completed phase 6.
Which phase the children should be working on is assessed by the
teacher, and appropriate teaching is planned for.
Below is information about the 6 phases, and the progression
between them.
Phase 1
Children explore and experiment with sounds, differentiate between
sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration (from
birth to the end of Nursery)
SEVEN ASPECTS –
• Environmental sound
• Instrumental sounds
• Body percussion
• Rhythm and rhyme
• Alliteration
• Voice sounds
• Oral blending and segmenting
Phase 2
To introduce grapheme/phoneme (letter/sound) correspondence
(beginning of Reception)
Children know that words are constructed from phonemes and that
phonemes are represented by graphemes.
They have a knowledge of a small selection of common consonants and
vowels (which usually begin with s, a, t, p, i, n) and begin to put them
together to read and spell CVC words.
Phase 3
To teach children one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order
to read and spell simple regular words. (Reception)
Children link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the
alphabet.
They hear and say sounds in the order they occur in the word and
read simple words by blending the phonemes from left to right.
They recognise common digraphs (e.g. th) and read some high
frequency words.
Now its your turn
I am going to show you sounds the children will learn in phase 3
and you will need to produce the action.
Actions that accompany the sounds the children are learning
helps them to remember and retain their phonetic sounds.
ch
sh
th
ng
ai
a-e
ay
ie
igh
i-e
oa
oe
o-e
Phase 4
To teach children to read and spell words containing adjacent
consonants. (End of Reception)
Phase 4 is revision and application of Phase 3 sounds.
Children will be able to blend and segment adjacent consonants in
words and apply this skill when reading and spelling.
Children will move from CVC words (pot, sheep) to CVCC words
(pots) and CCVC words (spot) and then CCVCC words (spots).
Phase 5
Teaching children to recognise and use alternative ways of
pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already
taught. (Year One)
Children will use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes
(e.g. the ‘c’ in coat and city).
Recognise an increasing number of high frequency words
automatically. Knowledge and skills of phonics will be the prime
approach to reading and spelling.
Now it is your turn
On the small piece of paper how many different
ways can you make the ee sound.
There are 8 ways!
e = in the word me
ee = in the word green
ea = in the word heal
ey = in the word key
ie – in the word field
ei – in the word ceiling
y – in the word happy
e-e – in the word theme
Phase 6
Teaching children to develop their skill and automaticity in reading
and spelling, creating ever increasing capacity to attend to reading
for meaning. (Year Two)
Applying phonic knowledge to recognise and spell an increasing
number of complex words. Read an increasing number of high and
medium frequency
words independently and automatically.
Let’s bring in the experts so you can see
how it is done
They will show you all the sounds and
actions and how to
segment and blend words!
High Frequency Words / Tricky Words
• The majority of high frequency words are phonically
regular. These words can be segmented and blended for
reading and writing.
(jump, his, took)
• Some exceptions – for example was and said should
be directly taught.
How do I know what phase my child is?
You should have received a letter home from school explaining the
phase your child is working at.
It explains that sounds they are going to be learning, the words they
need to be able to read and write and information about each phase.
It may take some time for your child to work through this phase.
Please do not expect them to complete it within a few weeks. As
teachers we need to be
secure in the understanding that each child can recognise all the
phonemes and can apply their phonics to their reading and writing.
Phonics Screening
During the summer term in Year 1 each child takes an individual
phonics screening test.
This tests their segmenting (breaking up the sounds) and blending
skills (pushing the sounds back together).
In the test there are a mixture of words they will see in their reading
books and ‘alien’ words. These are not real words but are a group of
phonemes pushed together to make up an invented word.
For example – phush, shoig, herth
The children will be taught how to read these words and the best
strategies to use when taking the test.
How can you help you child at home?
Read
Phonics Resource Pack
Websites
App’s
Games
Make it fun!
Any Questions?
Evaluation forms