Phonics at Elmtree

The aims of the session:1. To support you with your understanding of the key phonics principles. 2. To show you the progression through the six phases.3. To explain the Phonics Screening Check and the new Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests.4. To give you ideas for how to help your children at home.

Tuesday 20th October 2015

What is Phonics?• Phonics is the link between letters and the sounds they make.• Young children are taught to read by breaking words up into

their separate sounds (phonemes)• They are then taught how to blend these sounds together to

read the whole word e.g. d-o-g -> dog ch-i-ck -> chick• This is just one part of reading and writing, alongside sight-

recognition (knowing the ‘tricky words’ by heart) and comprehension (understanding the text)

• These are the first strategies children are taught to read words but they become less important as they become more competent readers.

• There are 44 phonemes (sounds) in the English language:

Important terms:• Phoneme- is a spoken sound e.g. ai in rain• Grapheme- is the different ways to write the

sound e.g. ai, ay, a-e, ey, eigh, a• Blending- is reading the sounds in the correct

order to work out the word• Decoding- is using their knowledge of sounds to

help them read an unknown word• Tricky word- is a word that cannot be decoded

using phonics e.g. was, Mr, come• High-frequency word- are very common in the

English language e.g. went, the, there

Daily Sessions• All Nursery, Reception and KS1 classes have

daily sessions which last up to 20 minutes• We use the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme• The children in KS1 are split across the year

group• The sessions are made up of 4 parts:

1* A recap of previous learning (revisit and review) 2* Some new learning e.g. a sound (teach) 3* A chance for the children to ‘have a go’ (practise) 4* A chance to use that new knowledge in a different way e.g. reading a sentence (apply)

• A range of resources are used to make the sessions interactive and engaging

Pronunciation• It is very easy to say the sounds

incorrectly!• It is important that children do not learn

to add an ‘uh’ sound e.g. s not suh• We call these their pure sounds• Here is a video that demonstrates the 44

phonemes within the English Language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwJx1NSineE

The 6 PhasesThis Phase is covered in Nursery and involves: • Listening to sounds in the environment, making

sounds with instruments and also with their bodies.

• Joining in with activities that involve rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, making vocal sounds and breaking words up into their sounds- oral blending.

• Developing the children’s ability to ‘tune in’ to sounds, memorise them, and talk about them.

Phase 1

The 6 PhasesThis Phase is covered in Reception and involves: • Learning 23 graphemes (such as ‘a’ in ‘cat’, ‘b’ in

‘bed’, ‘ll’ in ‘full’ and ‘ck’ in ‘duck’).• Writing the sounds down (rather than just saying them

aloud).• Writing some key VC and CVC words such as: it, in,

sat, pin, sun, etc.• Reading 2-syllable words (such as: ‘sunbed’) and

captions (such as: ‘It is a cat on a mat.’).• Recognising these tricky words by sight: the, to, go,

no, I.

Phase 2

The 6 Phases

This Phase is initially covered in Reception and involves: • Learning 23 new sounds (such as the ‘ai’ in ‘rain’ and

‘igh’ in ‘light’).• Practising and applying the new sounds through

reading and spelling words.• Reading 2-syllable words (such as: ‘lunchbox’) and

question captions (such as: ‘Can a duck quack?’).• Recognising these tricky words by sight: he, she, we,

me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, are and spelling the Phase 2 tricky words.

Phase 3

The 6 PhasesShould be covered in Reception but reviewed in Year One and is different as it does not introduce any new sounds. It involves:• Consolidating the children’s knowledge of sounds when

reading and spelling words.• Reading and writing words with more than one syllable such

as: treetop, sunlight, driftwood, etc.• Reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants

(consonant digraph or blend), such as: bring, drink, stamp, bump, etc, and also captions such as: ‘I must not stamp on the flowers’.

• Recognising these tricky words by sight: said, so, do, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what and spelling the Phase 3 tricky words.

Phase 4

The 6 PhasesShould be taught in Year One but reviewed in Year Two and involves: • Learning 19 new graphemes (such as the ‘ay’ in ‘pay’ and ‘au’

in ‘August’) for reading first, and then spelling.• Reading and writing words with two and three syllables such

as: ‘unicorn’, ‘furniture’, ‘yesterday’ etc.• Reading a range of captions such as: ‘Rain and snow are part

of our winter weather’, ‘Which of these are days of the week?’ etc.

• Recognising these tricky words by sight: oh, no, people, Mr, Mrs, looked, called, asked, and spelling the Phase 4 tricky words.

• Teaching alternative sounds for graphemes already taught, such as: ‘ow’ in ‘blow’ and ‘a’ in ‘warm’.

Phase 5

The 6 PhasesShould be taught in Year Two and involves: • Learning past and present tense (e.g. he went to the

shops/he is going to the shops).• Adding suffixes (endings) to words such as: ‘est’ in

‘smallest’ and ‘tion’ in ‘information’ as well as learning the important rules e.g. some consonants are doubled before adding ‘ing’ (such as: hop becomes hopping)

• Finding and learning the ‘tricky’ bits in words, as well as rules and patterns to help them in the future e.g. I can spell ‘would’ because I know ‘could’.

Phase 6

• The Government want to know that Phonics is being taught properly in schools so they have started “testing” Year 1 children on their ability to decode (read) real and fake words.

• The children must read 40 words (20 real and 20 fake)

• This year, the pass mark was 32 out of 40.

• It takes place in June.

Phonics Screening Check Y1

• For the first time, Year Two children will be doing a SPaG test as part of their SATs.

• The spelling is similar to the previous test- adding the missing word to the sentence.

• The rest involves reading sentences with missing words and choosing the word that makes the most sense.

• Adding punctuation to sentences e.g. commas in a list. • Selecting the correct word-type: adjectives, nouns, verbs and

adverbs.• Looking at sentence types: commands, questions, statements

and exclamations.• Add s and es to plurals e.g. cars and foxes.• Deciding if something is written in the past or present tense.

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar Test Y2

• Reading their school book e.g. sound-spotting, tricky word practise.

• Listening and looking for sounds even when the adult is reading.

• Playing games using the tricky words and sound cards sent home.

• Magnetic letters e.g. building words.• Using robot voices to break up the sounds in

words e.g. can you get your c-oa-t.• Making rhyming strings.• Looking for sounds in the environment.

Top Tips for helping your child at home

• Mr Thorne’s Phonics: http://mrthorne.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnXaN-CvR9s

His ‘Geraldine the Giraffe’ videos are particularly funny as the children enjoy correcting her when she gets things wrong! • Jolly Phonics: http

://jollylearning.co.uk/2010/10/29/hear-the-letter-sounds/They explain how to pronounce the sounds correctly in this video and there is also a wide selection of songs on youtube:Phase 1 and 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djz82FBYiugPhase 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjKq8s8154s• Phonics Play: http://

www.phonicsplay.co.uk/Phase3Menu.htm This website has a variety of fun games. The Buried Treasure and Obb and Bob games are particularly helpful as the children have to read a range of real and fake ‘alien’ words.• Starfall:

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/play.htm?fThe children can read interactive books with some of the key phonics sounds.

Brilliant Websites

Thank you so much for coming.

Any questions?