Letters and Sounds

• Phonics is now taught for 20 mins per day, every day

• Some schools stream for phonics sessions in their key stages, or as a whole school

• Phonics and reading skills are taught in 6 distinct phases

Phonics Consists of:• Identifying sounds in spoken words• Recognising the common spellings ofeach phoneme• Blending phonemes into words forreading• Segmenting words into phonemes forSpelling

Enunciation• Teaching phonics requires a

technical skill in enunciation• Phonemes (sounds) should be

articulated clearly and precisely

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlTw0oiLNys

Some definitions DigraphTwo letters that make 1 sound Consonant diagraph contains 2 consonants- sh, ck, th, llVowel diagraph contains at least 1 vowel-ai, ee, ar, oyTrigraph Three letters that make one sound e.g.‘igh’ Spilt diagraph Formally known as magic ‘e’ e.g. a-e in make

Blending (for reading)• Recognising the letter sounds in a

written word e.g c-u-p sh-ee-p• Merging them into the correct

order to pronounce the word cup and sheep

Segmenting (for spelling)

Identifying the individual sounds in aspoken word (e.g. h-i-m , s-t-or-k) andwriting down letters for each sound(phoneme) to form the word him andstork

Always ensuring the correct enunciation is usede.g. h-i-m, as apposed to H-I-M

The Phases ExplainedPhase 1 • Showing an awareness of rhyme and

alliteration• Distinguishing between sounds in the

environment and phonemes• Exploring and experimenting with sounds and

words• Discriminating speech sounds in words• Beginning to orally blend and segment

phonemes

Phase 1 activity • Taking the children on a listening

walk…listening for sounds.

Sequence of teaching in a discrete phonics

session1. Revisit and review Practise previously taught soundsPractice oral blending/segmentation2. TeachNew soundBlending/segmenting with lettersTricky words3. PractiseReading or spelling words with new sound4. ApplyRead or write a caption and integrating sound and highfrequency word/s

Phase 2 (6 wks)Blending for reading and segmentingfor spelling simple cvc words

• Set 1 - s, a, t, p,• Set 2 - l, n, m, d,• Set 3 - g, o, c, k,• Set 4 - ck, e, u, r,• Set 5 - h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss

Phase 2 • Phonics clip• Revisit /Review• Teach

Practise

Apply-video

Phase 3 (Up to 12wks )• Knowing one grapheme for each of the phonemes• Reading and spelling a wide range of cvc wordsLetter Progression:Set 6 - j, v, w, xSet 7 - y, z, zz, quGraphemes:ear, air, ure, er, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ai, ee, igh,oa, ooConsonant digraphs:ch, sh, th, ng.

Phase 3 activity• Sound buttons game

• This is a consolidation unit. • There are no new graphemes to learn.

Reading and spelling of tricky words continues

• Segmenting words and applying this in spelling.

• Blending the sounds in words and applying this skill when reading unfamiliar texts

Phase 4 (Up to 6wks )

Phase 5• Reading phonetically decodable two syllable

and three-syllable words e.g. thirteen, telephone

• Using alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes e.g. i-fin/find, c-cat/cent, g-got/giant

• Using alternative spellings for phonemes e.g. ai-a-e, ay etc

• Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts

• New phoneme zh e.g. treasure, television, casual

Phase 6 /Support for spelling

• Recognising phonic irregularities and becoming more secure with less common grapheme – phoneme correspondences.

• Applying phonic skills and knowledge to recognise and spell an increasing number of complex words.

Phase 6 cont.

• Introducing the tenses, e.g. Walk-walked-walking

• Investigating and learning how to add suffixes, e.g. shopping

• Finding and learning the difficult bits in words

In addition to this, each the week the

children learn ‘tricky’ spelling words(those that are not spelt

phonetically e.g. the) and key sight vocabulary such as no, go, away, going.

• The children always work within the phase that is appropriate to their level of learning

• They are assessed regularly and groupings are sorted accordingly

• Therefore, the suggested model of year group and corresponding phase, does not always go hand in hand with the year group that your child is actually in