© Crown copyright 2006 CPD session for teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants Improving phonics subject knowledge

© Crown copyright 2006

CPD session for teachers, practitioners and teaching assistantsImproving phonics subject knowledge


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Objective

• To support practitioners in developing a good knowledge and understanding of phonic principles


Phonics: The priority for training

‘It is hardly surprising that training to equip those who are responsible for beginner readers with a good understanding of the core principles and skills of teaching phonic work, including those responsible for intervention programmes, has emerged as a critical issue’

The Rose Report

Independent review of the teaching of early reading, Final report, Jim Rose, March 2006 (DfES 0201-2006DOC-EN. ISBN 1-84478-684-6)


1. What is a phoneme?2. How many phonemes are in the word ‘fair’? 3. a) What is a digraph? b) Give an example4. a) What is a CVC? b) Give an example5. What is a grapheme?6. How many different sounds do the letters of our

alphabet produce?7. a) What is a ‘trigraph’? b) Give an example8. How many phonemes are in the word ‘drift’? 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?

A phonics quiz


Enunciation

• Teaching phonics requires a technical skill in enunciation

• Phonemes should be articulated clearly and precisely


Some definitions

A phoneme is the smallest unit ofsound in a word


Some definitions

Grapheme

Letter(s) representing a phoneme

t ai igh


Some definitions

Blending

Recognising the letter soundsin a written word, for examplec-u-p, and merging or synthesisingthem in the order in which theyare written to pronounce the word ‘cup’


Some definitions

Oral blending

Hearing a series of spoken sounds and merging them together to make a spoken word – no text is used

For example, when a teacher calls out ‘b-u-s’, the children say ‘bus’

This skill is usually taught before blending and reading printed words


Some definitions

Segmenting

Identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word (e.g. h-i-m) and writing down or manipulating letters for each sound to form the word ‘him’


Some definitions

DigraphTwo letters, which make one sound

A consonant digraph contains two consonants

sh ck th ll

A vowel digraph contains at least one vowelai ee ar oy


Some definitions

Trigraph

Three letters, which make one sound

igh dge


Some definitions

Split digraph

A digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make)


Some definitions

Synthetic phonics‘Synthetic phonics refers to an approach to the teaching of reading in which the phonemes [sounds] associated with particular graphemes [letters] are pronounced in isolation and blended together (synthesised). For example, children are taught to take a single-syllable word such as cat apart into its three letters, pronounce a phoneme for each letter in turn /k, æ, t/, and blend the phonemes together to form a word. Synthetic phonics for writing reverses the sequence: children are taught to say the word they wish to write, segment it into its phonemes and say them in turn, for example /d, ɔ, g/, and write a grapheme for each phoneme in turn to produce the written word, dog.’Definition adopted by the Rose Report


Key message

• The Rose Report recommended that whatever phonic programme is in use by the school, it should have a systematic progression with clear expectations by teachers and practitioners of the expected pace of teaching and learning


Consonant digraphs

ll ss ff zzhill pufffizz

sh ch th whship chat thin

ck ng qu xfox sing quick


Examples of CCVC, CVCC, CCCVC and CCVCC

b l a c k s t r o ngc c v c c c c v

c

f e l t b l a n kc v c c c c v c c


A segmenting activity



ss



s lls



s l iils



s l i pils p


Segmenting

WORD PHONEMES

shelf sh e l f

dress d r e ss

think th i n k

string s t r i ng

sprint s p r i n t

flick f l i ck


The same phoneme can be represented in more than one way

a a-e ai ay ey eighe e-e ea ee yi i-e ie igh yo o-e oa oe owu u-e ue oo ewoo u oulow ou oughoi oyar aor aw ore a oughair are eareer ear


Certain representations of a phoneme are

more likely in initial, medial and final

position in monosyllabic words


1. The best bets for representing /ae/ at the beginning and in the middle of a word are a-e and ai

2. The best bet for representing /ae/ at the end of a word is ay


Spelling

• There are patterns or regularities that help to determine choices or narrow possibilities – for example for each vowel phoneme some digraphs and trigraphs are more frequently used before certain consonants than others

• Children need to explore these patterns through word investigations

• Teachers need to understand these patterns in order to structure their teaching and design or select appropriate activities


High frequency words

• The majority of high frequency words are phonically regular

• Some exceptions – for example the and was – should be directly taught

Documents

© Crown copyright 2006 CPD session for teachers, practitioners and teaching assistants Improving phonics subject knowledge