Phonics
How to help at
home
ST NICHOLAS CE (VC)
FIRST SCHOOL
Phonics is all about using …
skills for
reading and
spelling
+
knowledge
of the
alphabet
Learning phonics will help your child
to become a good reader and writer.
Phonics Scheme
• At St Nics, we teach the Letters and
Sounds programme using Phonic Bug and
Jolly Phonics resources across Key
Stage 1 and the EYFS. In KS2, children
who have not fully grasped all the
necessary sounds will need consolidation
of phonics skills. Where they are
secure with these sounds and skills,
they go on to learn spelling rules and
spelling patterns.
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PHONICS
Correct pronunciation
Correct vocabulary
We all need to use the same
language at home and at school.
Little and often is the key.
It does not have to be formal.
Link it to your child’s interests.
What it all means…
PHONEME
• The smallest unit of sound in a word.
• There are 44 phonemes that we
teach.
The 44 phonemes
/b/
/d/
/f/
/g/
/h/
/j/
/k/
/l/
/m/
/n/
/ng/
/p/
/r/
/s/
/t/
/v/
/w/
/y/
/z/
/th/
/th/
/ch/
/sh/ /zh/ /a/
/e/
/i/
/o/
/u/
/ai/
/ee/ /ie/
/oa/
/oo/ /oo/ /ar/ /ur/ /or/ /er/ /ow/ /oi/
/air/ /ear/ /ure/
GRAPHEME
• Letters representing a phoneme
e.g.
c
ai
igh
Children need to practise
recognising the grapheme and
saying the phoneme that it
represents.
BLENDING
• Recognising the letter sounds in a
written word, for example
c-u-p
and merging or ‘blending’ them in the
order in which they are written to
pronounce the word ‘cup’
•
- Using sound buttons
Sound Buttons
l
.
o g
.
d
.
f
.
u ck
.
.
i
ll
.
_
_
SEGMENTING
• ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out
• The opposite of blending
• Robot arms
• shelf =
sh – e – l – f
• dress = d - r - e – ss
= 4 phonemes
= 4 phonemes
• sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes
• string = s – t – r – i – ng
= 5 phonemes
Once children are good with
single phonemes…
• DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1
sound
ll ss zz ch ee oa ai
• TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1
sound
igh dge
The importance of knowledge of
letter names.
Tricky Words
There are many words that cannot be blended or segmented because they
are irregular.
•
the
was
said
you
Words that are not phonically decodeable
some
•
e.g. was, the, I
•
Some words are not decodable until their sounds are taught during phases
3 or 5, e.g. ‘her’ or ‘out’.
Glossary:
• Phonemes: The smallest units of sound that are found
within a word
• Grapheme: The spelling of the sound e.g. Th
• Diagraph: Two letters that make one sound when read
• Trigraphs: Three letters that make one sound
• CVC: Stands for consonant, vowel, consonant.
• Segmenting is breaking up a word into its sounds.
• Blending : Putting the sounds together to read a word
• Tricky words: Words that cannot easily be decoded.
Daily Phonics
•Every day the children have a 30 minute
sessions of phonics.
• Fast paced approach
• Lessons encompass a range of games,
songs and rhymes. Each lesson follows a
recap, teach, practise and apply
approach.
•There are 6 phonics phases which
the children work through at their
own pace
Phase 1 – Nursery. Develops 7 aspects. Skills that
are required to understand and use phonics
effectively.
Phase 2 – Nursery/Reception. Introduces most
commonly used sounds in order and practises the skills
of blending and segmenting VC, CVC words and nonwords.
Phase 3 – Reception. Introduces digraphs and some
trigraphs, practises letter names and skills of
segmenting and blending in order to read and write
simple sentences.
Phase 4 – End Reception/Year 1. Practises learnt
phonemes and introduces children to segmenting and
blending words with consonant blends e.g. CCVC trip
and CVCC jump.
Phases 5 and 6 continue to develop children’s
phonics skills throughout Key Stage 1.
Phase 1:
Getting ready for phonics
7 aspects focusing on
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Environmental Sounds
Instrumental Sounds
Body Percussion
Rhythm and rhyme
Alliteration
Voice sounds
How can I help at home?
• Talking and Listening.
• Reading with and to your child
• Nursery rhymes, songs, action rhymes.
• Add sound effects to stories.
• Music and movement: rhythm, guess the
instrument.
• Talking about sounds: listening walks,
loud/soft, high/low, silly noises.
• Speaking & listening: silly sentences “Happy
Harry hops”, mimics, animal sounds.
Phase 2:
Learning phonemes to read and
write simple words
• Children will learn their first 19 phonemes:
Set 1: s a t p Set 2: i n m d
Set 3: g o c k Set 4: ck (as in duck) e u r
Set 5: h b l f
ff (as in puff) ll (as in hill)
ss (as in hiss)
• They will use these phonemes to read and spell
simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC)
words:
sat, tap, dig, duck, rug, puff, hill, hiss
All these words contain 3 phonemes.
Phase 3:
Learning the long vowel phonemes
• Children will enter phase 3 once they know
the first 19 phonemes and can blend and
segment to read and spell CVC words.
• They will learn another 26 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
• They will use these phonemes (and the ones from
Phase 2) to read and spell words:
chip, shop, thin, ring, pain, feet, night,
boat, boot, look, farm, fork, burn,
town, coin, dear, fair, sure
Phase 4:
Introducing consonant clusters: reading and
spelling words with four or more phonemes
• Children move into phase 4 when they know all the
phonemes from phases 2 and 3 and can use them to
read and spell simple words (blending to read and
segmenting to spell).
• Phase 4 doesn’t introduce any new phonemes.
• It focuses on reading and spelling longer words with
the phonemes they already know.
• These words have consonant clusters at the beginning:
spot, trip, clap, green, clown
…or at the end: tent, mend, damp, burnt
…or at the beginning and end! trust, spend,
twist
Phase 5
• Teach new graphemes for reading
•ay, ou, ie, ea, oy, ir, ue, aw, wh, ph, ew,
oe, au,
a-e, e-e, i-e, o-e, u-e
Learn alternative pronunciations of
graphemes (the same grapheme can represent
more than one phoneme):
Fin/find, hot/cold, cat/cent,
got/giant, cow/blow, tie/field,
eat/bread, farmer/her, hat/what,
yes/by/very, chin/school/chef,
out/shoulder/could/you.
Teaching children to understand that the same
sound can be written in different ways
e.g. burn, first, term, heard, work
Teaching the split digraph
tie
time
toe
tone
cue
cube
pie
pine
• When reading or spelling, encourage your child to
think
about what looks or sounds “right”.
e.g The clown was sad. My book was wet.
• Have fun trying out different options…wipe clean
whiteboards are good for trying out spellings.
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tray
rain
boil
boy
throat
snow
trai
rayn
boyl
boi
throwt
snoa
Phase 6
• Phase 6 focuses on spellings and
learning rules for spelling alternatives.
Children look at syllables, base words,
analogy and mnemonics e.g Sally Anne is
dancing = said
• Children might learn about past tense,
rules for adding ‘ing’ and irregular
verbs
•
- ‘tion’ and ‘sion’ words
• ..\
Phonics Assessment
At St Nics we assess our children and
monitor their acquisition of sounds, as
well as the skills with which to apply
those sounds in reading and writing.
National Phonic Screen was introduced
in 2012 and is carried out each year
during June.
What is the phonic
screen?
• It comprises of a list of 40 words and nonsense words.
It will assess phonics skills and knowledge learnt
through reception and year 1. Your child will read oneone with a teacher. It will be your child’s current
teacher or a reception teacher, so it is a familiar face.
• Your child will read up to 4 words per page and they
will probably do the check in 10-15 minutes. They will
be asked to ‘sound out’ a word and blend the sounds
together. The check is very similar to tasks the
children already complete during phonics lessons.
What are Nonsense or Pseudo
words and why are they included?
• These are words that are phonetically plausible but not
actual words with an associated meaning e.g. brip, snorb.
• These words are included in the check specifically to assess
whether your child can decode a word using phonic skills and
not their memory. The pseudo words will be shown to your
child with a picture of an alien. The children will be asked
what the aliens name is by reading the word. This will make
the check a bit more fun and provides the children with a
context for the nonsense word. Crucially it does not
provide any clues, so your child has to be able to decode it.
Children generally find nonsense amusing so they will
probably enjoy reading these words.
Supporting Early Writing
Allow your child to do phonetical
writing rather than copy writing –
develops their independence as writers
and provides the opportunity to apply
skills.
Can do books.
Real opportunities.
Praise their attempts – even if it
looks like scribble!
Phases of Early Writing
-Mark making
-Making and ascribing some meaning.
-Clear distinction between pictures and marks for
writing.
-Letter like marks.
-Recognisable, random letters to communicate
meaning. (often from name)
-Initial sounds (may be followed by random letters)
-Main sounds – consonants e.g bbs – babies
-Phonetically plausible attempts at complex words
and simple CVC words and HFWs spelt correctly.
E.g catpla, bin, to.
Play – based,
or real-life
opportunities
to use their
developing
skills – writing
shopping lists,
diaries, penpals,
role play,
spotting letters
and words in the
environment
around them.
Supporting your child’s
learning at home.
Reading practise
and encouraging a
love of books – visit
Phonics practise –
make the actions and
the library, enjoy
sounds to match the
sharing favourite
written letter, sing the
stories borrowed from
alphabet – we are
school or those you
learning letter sounds
have at home, and of
AND names, find the
course, practising
correct letter when they
reading through the
hear a sound, encourage
ORT or Phonic Bug
children to listen for
books.
sounds at the beginning
of words. Play blending
Letter formation and
and segmenting games.
High Frequency
Words.
Now you have the
knowledge….
• Play lots of sound and listening games with
your child.
• Read as much as possible to and with your
child.
• Encourage and praise – get them to have a
‘good guess’.
Useful websites
• www.parentsintouch.co.uk
• www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents
• www.jollylearning.co.uk
• www.focusonphonics.co.uk
• www.syntheticphonics.com
Bug Club eBooks
Each child has their own login details to a website where
they can read eBooks and practise their sounds and
skills.
www.bugclub.co.uk
Don’t forget…
Learning to read
should be fun for
both children and
parents.