Year R Phonics Workshop

1. Year R Phonics Workshop

2. Most important thing – from a very early age… • Talking and Listening • Reading with and to your child • Playing listening games • Singing songs and rhymes • Simple movement games • Without background noise All these things will help to build up connections in the brain, an enjoyment of language and confidence to try things out.

3. PHASE 1 • General sound discrimination • Environmental sounds • Instrumental sounds • Body percussion Listening walks, Mrs Bolton has a box, drumming outdoors, matching sounds, action songs, “Noisy Neighbours”

4. Taken from TES resources Taken from TEs resources

5. Rhythm and rhyme • Rhyming books, “Silly Soup”, rhyming bingo, rhyming pairs, songs and rhymes, odd one out. • Alliteration • I spy names, making and naming aliens, Bertie the Bus. • Voice sounds • Mouth movements, Metal Mike, Whose voice?, sound lotto, animal sounds, singing songs. • Oral blending and segmenting • Toy talk, clapping sounds, “Cross the River”, I spy,

6. PHASE 2 PHONICS • Correct pronunciation • Correct vocabulary • We all need to use the same language at home and at school. • Little and often is the key. Does not have to be formal. • Link it to your child’s interests.

7. PHONEME • We concentrate on the sound a letter makes not the letter name. This sound is the phoneme. • The smallest unit of sound in a word. • There are 44 phonemes that we teach.

8. Articulation of phonemes.

9. SOUNDS BOOKS • Provide you with the phonemes and actions we have learnt during the week. • This can be used as a fun workbook to support your child’s learning.

10. Order of the phonemes • s a t p • i n m d • g o c k • ck e u r • h b f l • ff ll ss

11. GRAPHEME • Letters representing a phoneme e.g. c ai igh Children need to practise recognising the grapheme and saying the phoneme that it represents.

12. BLENDING • Recognising the letter sounds in a written word, for example c-u-p and merging or ‘blending’ them in the order in which they are written to pronounce the word ‘cup’

13. SEGMENTING • ‘Chopping Up’ the word to spell it out • The opposite of blending • Use your fingers for each phoneme

14. Segment and Blend these words… • drep • blom • gris Nonsense games like this help to build up skills – and are fun!

15. Once children are good with single phonemes… • DIGRAPHS – 2 letters that make 1 sound ll ss zz oa ai • TRIGRAPHS – 3 letters that make 1 sound igh air

16. Segmenting Activity • Use your fingers to say how many phonemes in each word. • shelf • dress • sprint • string

17. Did you get it right? • shelf = sh – e – l – f = 4 phonemes • dress = d - r - e – ss = 4 phonemes • sprint = s – p – r – i – n – t = 6 phonemes • string = s – t – r – i – ng = 5 phonemes

18. TRICKY WORDS • Words that are not phonetically decodeable • e.g. was, the, I • Some are ‘tricky’ to start with but will become decodeable once we have learned the harder phonemes later on • e.g. out, there,

19. Letter formation • As the phonemes are introduced we talk about the shapes of the letters. • We also look at the letter formation and use mnemonics to help us remember. • Writing at this stage is in the air, on our bodies, in the mud, the shaving foam and rarely on paper. • Using the skills learnt during our Write Dance sessions.

20. Now you have the knowledge…. • Play lots of sound and listening games with your child. • Read as much as possible to and with your child. • Encourage and praise – get them to have a ‘good guess’. • Ask your child’s teacher if you want to know more. Make it fun!

21. Useful websites • www.loose-infant.kent.sch.uk • www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/kentict/content/games - includes Bertie the Bus • www.letters-and-sounds.com • www.phonicsplay.co.uk • http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/