So, what exactly is phonics?

GPCs

Blending

Segmenting

What makes phonics tricky?• 44 phonemes• 120 graphemes• 26 letters

• Digraphs: 2 letters that make 1 sound ch ng oa

• Trigraphs: 3 letters that make 1 sound igh air ear

• Alternative spellings: ai ay a-e

How is phonics taught?

• Phonics sessions are entirely made up from games, songs and actions and these sessions only last for 15-20 minutes per day.

• We follow a programme called Letters and Sounds.

• There a 6 phases.

Phase 1

• Phase 1 develops children’s abilities to listen to, make, explore and talk about sounds.• Rhyme, alliteration, identifying sounds in the environment

• These skills should continue to be developed throughout KS1 and KS2.

Phase 2• GPCs need to be introduced in systematic way.• Set 1 - s a t p• Set 2 - i n m d• Set 3 - g o c k• Set 4 - ck e u r• Set 5 - h b f ff l ll s ss

• Sounds, actions, forming the letter• Blending and segmenting

Always use pure sounds.

•s•f•n•m

Phase 2 contd…

• Reading tricky words

Phase 3

• By the end of Phase 3 the children will know one way of writing down each of the 44 phonemes.• Set 6 - j v w x• Set 7 - y z zz qu• Consonant digraphs - ch sh th ng• Vowel digraphs (and trigraphs) ai ee igh oa oo ar or ur ow oi ear air

ure er

Phase 3 contd…

• CVC refers to words with a consonant phoneme, a vowel phoneme and then a consonant phoneme - it is not referring to letters. Therefore hot, bed and zip are all CVC words but cow and toy are not.

• Writing tricky words

• Reading tricky words

Phase 4

• The main challenge in this phase is to help children to blend and segment words with adjacent consonants e.g. truck, help.

• Children with speech and language difficulties can find Phase 4 very tricky.

• If children struggle to hear all the sounds in a word encourage them to think about the movements that their mouths are making. Looking in mirrors can help with this.

Phase 4 contd…

• Reading tricky words

• Writing tricky words

Phase 5

• Split digraphs a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e• E.g. the ch grapheme can be pronounced in each of these ways check,

chef and school.• some phonemes have more than one spelling • Spelling rules eg adding – s and –es• Compound words

• Reading tricky words

• Writing tricky words

Phase 6

• Phase 6 reinforces much of the learning from Phase 5, helps children to develop greater automaticity in reading, and begins to explore spelling rules and conventions e.g. adding -ing and –ed as well as compound words.

Useful sites

• www.phonicsplay.co.uk

• https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/190599/Letters_and_Sounds_-_DFES-00281-2007.pdf (this is the Letters and Sounds document)