Phonics Workshop for Infant Parents

1. Phonics Workshop for Infant Parents Supporting your child with phonics and reading Miss Nikki Pearce 13th November 2013

2. Learning Intentions • To understand the importance of phonics. • To get an idea of how phonics is taught in school. • To understand the progression through phonic phases and how to support and develop children’s learning. • What can I do at home?

3. Why Phonics? • Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading by Jim Rose in 2006 (Rose Review) • Reading by Six – how the best schools do it. (Ofsted Nov 2010) • Year 1 Phonics Screening.

4. Why Phonics? Letters and Sounds is recommended. Six phase teaching programme.

5. Why Phonics? • The aim is to secure essential phonics knowledge and skills so that children can progress quickly to independent reading and writing. • Reading and writing are like a code: phonics is teaching the child to crack the code. • Gives us the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.

6. High quality phonics work… • Phonic work is time-limited (phases 2-4) whereas work on comprehension continues throughout life (phase 6) • Interactive multi-sensory phonic session at their own level. • A session led by a member of staff of shared reading and/or shared writing. • Opportunities for independent reading and writing. • Pace and progression is key.

7. Technical vocabulary • A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. A phoneme may be represented by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. Eg. t aiigh • A syllable is a word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. E.g. hap/pen bas/ket let/ter • A grapheme is the letter(s) representing a phoneme. Written representation of a sound which may consist of 1 or more letters eg. The phoneme ‘s’ can be represented by the grapheme s (sun), se (mouse), c (city), sc or ce(science) • Alliteration is the consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession.

8. Technical vocabulary • A digraph is two letters, which make one sound. • A consonant digraph contains two consonants shthckll • A vowel digraph contains at least one vowel aieearoy • A split digraph is a digraph in which the two letters are not adjacent (e.g. make) • A trigraphis three letters, which make one sound. E.g. ighdge

9. Technical vocabulary • 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. • Blending – recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for examplec-u-p, and merging or synthesising themin the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’. • 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’.

10. Technical vocabulary REMEMBER! CVC refers to phonemes NOT LETTERS! tap coat shop cat

11. Summary of Phases • Phase 1 (on-going) • To distinguish between sounds and become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. • Phase 2 (6 weeks) • To introduce 19 grapheme-phoneme correspondences. • Phase 3 (12 weeks) • To teach one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to spell simple regular words. • Phase 4 (4-6 weeks) • To read and spell words containing adjacent consonants. • Phase 5 (in Yr1) • To teach alternative pronunciations for graphemes and alternative spellings for phonemes. • Phase 6 (in Yr2) • To develop their skill and automaticity in reading and writing.

12. Phase 1 - ongoing • To develop language and increase vocabulary through speaking and listening activities. • To develop phonological awareness. • To distinguish between sounds. • To speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control. • To become familiar with rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. • Use sound talk to segment words into phonemes. • Example activities - listening walks, dodgems, Silly Soup, rhyming chants/songs,

13. Phase 2 – Up to 6 weeks To introduce grapheme-phoneme correspondences • Children know that words are constructed from phonemes and that phonemes are represented by graphemes. • They have knowledge of a small selection of common consonants and vowels – only 19! • They blend them together in reading simple CVC words and segment them to support spelling. – use of magnetic letters!

14. Phase 2 Letter Progression (one set a week) • 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,ffl,ll s

15. Correct Articulation of phonemes is essential! Pronunciation - not ‘uh’ on the end – use soft voice! Video – Articulation of Sounds (Search on YouTube)

16. Articulation Short oo cook book look hook Spoken Sound the that there this Long oo spoon moon balloon smoothie Soft Sound think thin thick thumb This is one reason why the English Language is tricky! Children won’t grasp this overnight or by osmosis…they need to be immersed in an awareness of language throughout the day.

17. Teaching Sequence Revisit and Review Recently and previously learned phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and blending and segmenting skills. Teach New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting. Practise New phoneme-grapheme correspondences; skills of blending and segmenting. Apply New knowledge and skills while reading/writing.

18. Phase 2 – Example Activities • Sound Buttons • Box of Sounds – children sit in a circle. Place objects in the centre of the circle. Pass a box containing grapheme cards around the circle singing. Child holding the box at the end of the song takes out the top card, identifies sound and places it next to the corresponding object. (Alternately call out a sound for the child to find) • Cross the River

19. Phase 2 – more ideas! • Pebbles with letters on • Cutlery drawer organiser – sort objects by letters. • Nursery Rhymes • Water brushes • Writing on back/floor/wall with finger

20. Tricky Words • Phrases to represent the word. E.g. silly ants in dustbins – said. • Jumping up to hit the word • Stepping on the stairs • Matching pairs game • Regular practice

21. Phase 3 – Up to 12 weeks To teach children one grapheme for each of the 44 phonemes in order to read and spell simple regular words. • Naming and sounding letters of the alphabet. • Recognise letter shapes and say a sound for each • Hear and say sounds in the order in which they occur, and read simple words by sounding out and blending. • Recognise common digraphs and read some high frequency words.

22. Phase 3 – Example activities • Full Circle • Buried Treasure • Sentence Substitution • Phoneme Frames

23. Phase 4– (4-6 weeks) To teach children to read and spell words containing adjacent consonants and polysylabic words. • Teaching should focus on the skills of blending and segmenting words containing adjacent consonants. • They should not be taught in word families such as spot, spit, spin as the children will treat ‘sp’ as one unit.

24. Phase 4 Children now have the ability to blend and segment therefore they are moving beyond simple cvc words to cvcc, ccvc, ccvcc and cccvc. b l a ck s t r o ng c c v c c c c v c f e l t b l a n k c v c c c c v c c

25. Phase 4 – Example activities • Yes/No • Phoneme Count – prepare boxes/gift bags labelled with a number. Sort objects/words into boxes according to how many units of sound the word has in it.

26. Phase 5 To teach children to recognise and use alternative ways of pronouncing the graphemes and spelling the phonemes already taught. • Teaching the long vowel phonemes • Read and spellphonetically decodable 2/3 syllable words e.g. bleating, frogspawn, shopkeeper. • Choose the appropriate graphemes to represent phonemes when spelling words. • Recognise an increasing number of high frequency words automatically. • Spelling complex words using phonetically plausible attempts ai a-e ay • Seeing themselves as writers!

27. Phase 5 – Example activities • Word Relay • Human Dominoes

28. When children are secure at phase 5 they can move on to ‘Support for Spelling’

29. Year 1 Phonics Screening • A screening check for year one to encourage schools to pursue a rigourous phonics programme. • Aimed at identifying the children who need extra help are given the support. • Assesses decoding skills using phonics • 40 items to be read (20 real words, 20 pseudo words) • If children do not pass in Year 1 they have to retake the test at the end of Year 2. • What does it look like?

30. Tracking and Progress • Children are assessed briefly at the end of each session to ensure understanding and good progression. • Children are assessed against a progress tracking grid. • Children move teaching groups to accommodate their need and ability – we stream the children by phase across the Infants. • End of phase progress checks. • Year 1 Phonics screening check.

31. How can I help? - Reading Books • Your child will be bringing home two reading books each week. Talk about the book, the character, what is happening in the story, predict what may happen next. Encourage a love of reading – not a chore! • Phonics Book – to support the phonics learnt at school. • Reading Book – to encourage children to develop other reading skills such as using pictures and reading on.

32. What else can I do at home? • Ask your child to find items around the house that represent particular sounds, i.e. ‘oo’ - ‘spoon’ ‘bedroom’ • Play matching pairs – with key words or individual sounds/pictures. • Key words on the stairs • Play tricky word bingo • Flashcard letters and words – how quickly can they read them? • Notice words/letters in the environment. • Go on a listening walk around the house/when out and about. • Lots of activities online for children to practice their phonic knowledge.

33. Phonics games websites • http://www.letters-and-sounds.com • http://www.ictgames.com

34. Thank You Please complete the feedback form to help us improve the Phonics Workshop for next time.