London Borough of Bexley
Taking delight in words and sounds:
Phase 1 of Letters and Sounds Programme
julia.andrew@bexley.gov.uk
Listening to you, working for you
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Aims for this session
•
Review early phonics subject knowledge and skills
•
Introduce the Letters and Sounds Programme Phase 1
•
Highlight the role of the adult in modelling and promoting
good speaking and listening; underlining its importance
in language and literacy development.
•
Think about next steps to ensure implementation of
Phase 1 in your setting
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The role of phonics in children’s early literacy
•Children who know lots of nursery rhymes and songs generally
read well
•Children who are learning English as an additional language
generally learn to hear sounds in words very easily
•Children can learn to hear individual sounds very easily through
play
•Play writing is an important stage in children’s development
•Children who know lots of letters have a good start in reading and
writing
•Children can learn to recognise shapes of letters through play
•Children with hearing, speech and language difficulties benefit from
playing with sounds
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ICAN survey
• ‘50% of children entering school this year
have transient language or communication
difficulties and with the right support are
likely to catch up’
• ‘For children with impoverished language,
creating a communication support
environment in the early years at home and
in school is critical’
(ICAN The Cost to the Nation of Children’s Poor Communication 2006)
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What would you expect to see in a broad and rich
language environment?
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Phonics subject knowledge
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“Linking sounds and letters is about how
children develop the ability to distinguish
between sounds and become familiar with
rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. They develop
understanding of the correspondence
between spoken and written sounds and
learn to link sounds and letters and use their
knowledge to read and write simple words by
sounding out and blending”
Taken from EYFS CLL Card
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Enunciation
• Teaching phonics requires a technical
skill in articulation.
• Phonemes should be articulated
clearly and precisely by adults and
children.
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Pure sounds
• Pronunciation of sounds should be ‘pure’
• Does anyone know how we pronounce the
following letters as sounds?
m, n, h, s, t, b, d, l, r
Mr Thorne does phonics – how to learn the
letters of the alphabet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlTw0oiLNys
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Phonics consists of:
• knowledge of letters
• the two skills of blending and
segmentation
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Some definitions
A phoneme is the smallest unit of
sound in a word.
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Some definitions
Grapheme:
Letter(s) representing a phoneme.
t
ai
igh
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Some definitions
Blending:
– Recognising the letter-sounds in a
word, for example c-u-p, sh-ee-p
– merging or synthesising them in the
order in which they are written to
pronounce the word ‘cup’, ‘sheep.’
No text is used in Phase 1
Blending should be taught within Phase 1 before
blending and reading printed words.
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Some definitions
Segmenting:
• Identifying the individual sounds in a
spoken word
• (eg h-i-m, s-t-or-k) and writing down or
manipulating letters for each sound
(phoneme) to form the word ‘him’ or
‘stork’.
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Concept
• Sounds/phonemes are represented by
letters/graphemes
English is an alphabetic language. All the
sounds (phonemes) in each word are
represented by letters (graphemes). Young
children need to know that written words are
not arbitrary sets of squiggles.
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Blending and Segmentation
Blending
Segmentation
•Merging the individual phonemes
together to pronounce a word.
•Hear and say the individual
phonemes within words
•To read unfamiliar words a child must
recognise (sound out) each grapheme,
not each letter, then merge the
phonemes together to make a word
•In order to spell, children need to
segment a word into its component
phonemes and choose a grapheme to
represent each phoneme
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Oral segmenting and blending: let’s
practise!

bus

pot

chair

coat

slide

bell

feet

jump
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How many sounds?
peg chair coat puff sock
pick hair row
sheep
for
night
how
farm
shock fox
mess hill
off if sing
year
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“Letters
and Sounds”
What is Phase 1?
•
“The activities are intended to be used as part of a broad
and rich language curriculum that has speaking and
listening at its centre, links language with physical and
practical experiences, and provides an environment rich
in print and abundant in opportunities to engage with
books.”
•
“Phase 1 activities pave the way for children to make a
good start in reading and writing”
Page 2. Introduction Letters and Sounds teaching programme
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What Phase 1 has to offer
Aspect 1: General Sound
discrimination:
environmental sounds
Aspect 2: General Sound
discrimination: instrumental
sounds
Practitioners and teachers
should provide daily
speaking and listening
activities that are well
matched to children’s
developing abilities and
interests, drawing upon
observations
and assessments to plan
for progression and to
identify children who need
additional support, for
example to discriminate and
produce the sounds of
speech.
Aspect 3: General Sound
discrimination: body percussion
Aspect 4: Rhythm and rhyme
Aspect 5: Alliteration
Aspect 6:Voice sounds
Aspect 7: Oral blending and segmenting
Broad
and
balanced
diet 1-6
Pg.2 ‘L&S’
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Phase 1
continuous provision of Phase 1 through
Phases 2 to 6
Working on:
Showing awareness of rhyme and alliteration,
distinguishing between different sounds in the
environment and phonemes, exploring and
experimenting with sounds and words and discriminating
speech sounds in words. Beginning to orally blend and
segment phonemes
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Letters and Sounds – Phase 1 Aspect 7: Oral
blending and segmenting
 Oral segmenting and blending
 Start with last word in sentence or phrase
 No expectation that children are introduced to
letter/sound correspondences during Phase 1
 Importance of clear enunciation
 Blending and segmenting – reversible
processes
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Letters and Sounds Phase 1: seven aspects
•Environmental
•Instrumental
•Body percussion
•Rhythm & Rhyme
•Alliteration
•Voice
•Oral Blending and Segmenting
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Aspect 1 – Environmental sounds
General sound discrimination –
environmental
 The aim of this aspect is to raise children's
awareness of the sounds around them and
to develop their listening skills. Activities
suggested in the guidance include going on
a listening walk, drumming on different items
outside and comparing the sounds, playing a
sounds lotto game and making shakers.
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Aspect 2 – instrumental sounds
Aspect 2 - General sound discrimination instrumental sounds
 This aspect aims to develop children's
awareness of sounds made by various
instruments and noise makers. Activities
include comparing and matching sound
makers, playing instruments alongside a
story and making loud and quiet sounds.
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Aspect 3 – Body percussion
Aspect 3 - General sound discrimination body percussion
 The aim of this aspect is to develop
children's awareness of sounds and
rhythms. Activities include singing songs and
action rhymes, listening to music and
developing a sounds vocabulary.
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Aspect 4 – Rhythm and rhyme
Aspect 4 - Rhythm and rhyme
 This aspect aims to develop children's
appreciation and experiences of rhythm and
rhyme in speech. Activities include rhyming
stories, rhyming bingo, clapping out the
syllables in words and odd one out.
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Aspect 5 – Alliteration
Aspect 5 - Alliteration
 The focus is on initial sounds of words, with
activities including I-Spy type games and
matching objects which begin with the same
sound.
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Aspect 6 - voice sounds
Aspect 6 - Voice sounds
 The aim is to distinguish between different
vocal sounds and to begin oral blending and
segmenting. Activities include Metal Mike,
where children feed pictures of objects into a
toy robot's mouth and the teacher sounds
out the name of the object in a robot voice /c/-/u/-/p/ cup, with the children joining in.
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Aspect 7 – oral blending
In this aspect, the main aim is to develop oral blending and
segmenting skills.
 To practise oral blending, the teacher could say some
sounds, such as /c/-/u/-/p/ and see whether the children
can pick out a cup from a group of objects. For
segmenting practise, the teacher could hold up an
object such as a sock and ask the children which
sounds they can hear in the word sock.
 The activities introduced in Phase 1 are intended to
continue throughout the following phases, as lots of
practice is needed before children will become confident
in their phonic knowledge and skills.
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Implications for current practice
& next steps
Review your current planning:
 How do you check that the all aspects and strands are
covered through current activities?
 How do you observe and assess children in these activities
– and share this information with colleagues and parents?
 Are there follow-up activities with opportunities for children
to explore and apply their knowledge and skills in the
learning environment?
 How do you involve parents in children’s learning?
What will you need to share with your colleagues
in the setting?
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Whatever you do …
have fun with the activity and have fun with the
children
BUT…
Know why you are doing it!
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